ila herself distributing pieces to those small folks
who were so awestricken by the sight of this strange dainty that they
forgot her injunctions and thanked her timidly in Gaelic.

"Well, Sheila my lass," said her father to her as they stood at the
door of the house and watched the troop of their friends, children
and all, go over the hill to Borvabost in the red light of the sunset,
"and are you glad to be home again?"

"Oh yes," she said heartily enough; and Mackenzie thought that things
were going on favorably.

"You hef no such sunsets in the South, Sheila," he observed, loftily
casting his eye around, although he did not usually pay much attention
to the picturesqueness of his native island. "Now look at the light
on Suainabhal. Do you see the red on the water down there, Sheila? Oh
yes, I thought you would say it wass ferry beautiful--it is a ferry
good color on the water. The water looks ferry well when it is red.
You hef no such things in London--not any, Sheila. Now we must go
in-doors, for these things you can see any day here, and we must not
keep our friends waiting."

An ordinary, dull-witted or careless man might have been glad to have
a little quiet after so long and tedious a journey, but Mr. Mackenzie
was no such person. He had resolved to guard against Sheila's first
evening at home being in any way languid or monotonous, and so he had
asked one or two of his especial friends to remain and have supper
with them. Moreover, he did not wish the girl to spend the rest of
the evening out of doors when the melancholy time of the twilight
drew over the hills and the sea began to sound remote and sad. Sheila
should have a comfortable evening in-doors; and he would himself,
after supper, when the small parlor was well lit up, sing for her one
or two songs, just to keep the thing going, as it were. He would let
nobody else sing. These Gaelic songs were not the sort of music to
make people cheerful. And if Sheila herself would sing for them?

And Sheila did. And her father chose the songs for her, and they were
the blithest he could find, and the girl seemed really in excellent
spirits. They had their pipes and their hot whisky and water in this
little parlor; Mr. Mackenzie explaining that although his daughter was
accustomed to spacious and gilded drawing-rooms where such a thing
was impossible, she would do anything to make her friends welcome and
comfortable, and they might fill their glasses and their p