Highland
cottage, with narrow windows, a smell of wet wood about, and the
monotonous drip from over the door. And it seemed to her that a
stranger there would be very lonely, not knowing the ways or the
speech of the simple folk, careless perhaps of his own comfort, and
only listening to the plashing of the sea and the incessant rain on
the bushes and on the pebbles of the beach. Was there any picture of
desolation, she thought, like that of a sea under rain, with a slight
fog obscuring the air, and with no wind to stir the pulse with the
noise of waves? And if Frank Lavender had only gone as far as the
Western Highlands, and was living in some house on the coast, how sad
and still the Atlantic must have been all this wet forenoon, with the
islands of Colonsay and Oronsay lying remote and gray and misty in the
far and desolate plain of the sea!

"It will take a great deal of responsibility from me, sir," Mrs.
Paterson said to old Mackenzie, who was absently thinking of all the
strange possibilities now opening out before him, "if you will tell
me what is to be done. Mrs. Lavender had no relatives in London except
her nephew."

"Oh yes," said Mackenzie, waking up--"oh yes, we will see what is to
be done. There will be the boat wanted for the funeral--" He recalled
himself with an impatient gesture. "Bless me!" he said, "what was I
saying? You must ask some one else--you must ask Mr. Ingram. Hef you
not sent for Mr. Ingram?

"Oh yes, sir, I have sent to him; and he will most likely come in the
afternoon."

"Then there are the executors mentioned in the will--that wass
something you should know about--and they will tell you what to do. As
for me, it is ferry little I will know about such things."

"Perhaps your daughter, sir," suggested Mrs. Paterson, "would tell me
what she thinks should be done with the rooms. And as for luncheon,
sir, if you would wait--"

"Oh, my daughter?" said Mr. Mackenzie, as if struck by a new idea,
but determined all the same that Sheila should not have this new
responsibility thrust on her--"My daughter?--well, you was saying,
mem, that my daughter would help you? Oh yes, but she is a ferry young
thing, and you wass saying we must hef luncheon? Oh yes, but we will
not give you so much trouble, and we hef luncheon ordered at the other
house whatever; and there is the young girl there that we cannot leave
all by herself. And you hef a great experience, mem, and whatever you
do, that will