ght Betty flying up to Scotland with hastily
packed trunks and a singing heart.

Somehow she had expected him to meet her at the little station she
reached about noon after an all-night journey of incredible
discomforts. But no India-rubber Man had been there to welcome her;
instead a pretty girl with hair of a rusty gold, a year or two her
senior, had come forward rather shyly and greeted her.

"Are you Mrs. Standish?" she asked, smiling.

Despite the six-months-old wedding ring on her hand, Betty experienced
a faint jolt of surprise at hearing herself thus addressed.

"Yes," she said, and glanced half-expectantly up and down the platform.
"I hoped my husband would be here ..."

The stranger shook her head. "I'm afraid his squadron hasn't come in
yet," she said, and added reassuringly, "But it won't be long now.
Your sister wrote and told me you were coming up. My name's Etta
Clavering...."

"Oh, thank you," said Betty. "You got me rooms, didn't you--and I'm so
grateful to you."

"Not at all," said the other. "It's rather a job getting them as a
rule, but these just happened to be vacant. Rather nice ones: nice
woman, too. No bath, of course, but up here you get used to tubbing in
your basin, and--and little things like that. But everything's nice
and clean, and that's more than some of the places are." They had
sorted out Betty's luggage while Mrs. Clavering was talking, and left
it with the porter to bring on. "We can walk," said Betty's guide.
"It's quite close, and I expect you won't be sorry to stretch your
legs."

They skirted a little village of grey stone cottages straggling on
either side of a broad street towards a wooded glen, down which a river
wound brawling to join the waters of the Firth. Cottages and little
shops alternated, and half-way up the street a rather more pretentious
hotel of quarried stone rose above the level of the roofs. Hills
formed a background to the whole, with clumps of dark fir clinging to
their steep slopes, and in the far distance snow-capped mountains stood
like pale opals against the blue sky. The air was keen and
invigorating, and little clouds like a flock of sheep drifted overhead.

Mrs. Clavering led the way past the village towards a neat row of
cottages on the brow of a little hill about a quarter of a mile behind
it, and as they ascended a steep lane she turned and pointed with her
ashplant. A confusion of chimneys, cranes and wharves were shrouded