, papa, when you please," she said,
and he was glad and proud to hear her decision; but there was no happy
light of anticipation in her eyes, such as ought to have been awakened
by this projected journey to the far island which she had known as her
home.

And so it was that one rough and blustering afternoon the Clansman
steamed into Stornoway harbor, and Sheila, casting timid and furtive
glances toward the quay, saw Duncan standing there, with the wagonette
some little distance back under charge of a boy. Duncan was a proud
man that day. He was the first to shove the gangway on to the vessel,
and he was the first to get on board; and in another minute Sheila
found the tall, keen-eyed, brown-faced keeper before her, and he was
talking in a rapid and eager fashion, throwing in an occasional scrap
of Gaelic in the mere hurry of his words.

"Oh yes, Miss Sheila, Scarlett she is ferry well whatever, but there
is nothing will make her so well as your coming back to sa Lewis; and
we wass saying yesterday that it looked as if it wass more as three or
four years, or six years, since you went away from sa Lewis, but now
it iss no time at all, for you are just the same Miss Sheila as we
knew before; and there is not one in all Borva but will think it iss a
good day this day that you will come back."

"Duncan," said Mackenzie with an impatient stamp of his foot, "why
will you talk like a foolish man? Get the luggage to the shore,
instead of keeping us all the day in the boat."

"Oh, ferry well, Mr. Mackenzie," said Duncan, departing with an
injured air, and grumbling as he went, "it iss no new thing to you to
see Miss Sheila, and you will have no thocht for any one but yourself.
But I will get out the luggage--oh yes, I will get out the luggage."

Sheila, in truth, had but little luggage with her, but she remained on
board the boat until Duncan was quite ready to start, for she did
not wish just then to meet any of her friends in Stornoway. Then she
stepped ashore and crossed the quay, and got into the wagonette; and
the two horses, whom she had caressed for a moment, seemed to know
that they were carrying Sheila back to her own country, from the
speed with which they rattled out of the town and away into the lonely
moorland.

Mackenzie let them have their way. Past the solitary lakes they
went, past the long stretches of undulating morass, past the lonely
sheilings perched far up on the hills; and the rough and blustering