e
mist, and the castle frowning on its rock, and my baby face pressed
against the nursery window in the tower, and Angus and the library, and
Jean and her goodness and wise ways. It was dreadful to talk so much
about oneself. But he listened so. His eyes never left my face--they
watched and held me as if he were enthralled. Sometimes he asked a
question.

"I wonder who they were--the horsemen?" he pondered. "Did you ever ask
Wee Elspeth?"

"We were both too little to care. We only played," I answered him. "And
they came and went so quickly that they were only a sort of dream."

"They seem to have been a strange lot. Wasn't Angus curious about them?"
he suggested.

"Angus never was curious about anything," I said. "Perhaps he knew
something about them and would not tell me. When I was a little thing
I always knew he and Jean had secrets I was too young to hear. They hid
sad and ugly things from me, or things that might frighten a child. They
were very good."

"Yes, they were good," he said, thoughtfully.

I think any one would have been pleased to find herself talking quietly
to a great genius--as quietly as if he were quite an ordinary person;
but to me the experience was wonderful. I had thought about him so much
and with such adoring reverence. And he looked at me as if he truly
liked me, even as if I were something new--a sort of discovery which
interested him. I dare say that he had never before seen a girl who had
lived so much alone and in such a remote and wild place.

I believe Sir Ian and his wife were pleased, too, to see that I
was talking. They were glad that their guests should see that I was
intelligent enough to hold the attention even of a clever man. If Hector
MacNairn was interested in me I could not be as silly and dull as I
looked. But on my part I was only full of wonder and happiness. I was a
girl, and he had been my only hero; and it seemed even as if he liked me
and cared about my queer life.

He was not a man who had the air of making confidences or talking about
himself, but before we parted I seemed to know him and his surroundings
as if he had described them. A mere phrase of his would make a picture.
Such a few words made his mother quite clear to me. They loved each
other in an exquisite, intimate way. She was a beautiful person. Artists
had always painted her. He and she were completely happy when they were
together. They lived in a house in the country, and I could not at all
t