."

"Very well, Donald. Have you had breakfast?"

"Oo, ay."

"Go into the kitchen, then, and they will give you some more."

"Thenkee, sir."

"I find," said the laird on returning to his friends, "that we are to
have no service to-day in our little church, as our minister has to take
the duty at Drumquaich, on the other side of the loch. So those of you
who are bent on going to church must make up your minds to cross the
loch in the boat."

"Is Drumquaich the little village close under the pine wood, that we see
on doubling Eagle Point?" asked Mabberly.

"The same. The little church there, like our own, is not supplied
regularly. Sometimes a Divinity student is sent down to them.
Occasionally they have a great gun from Edinburgh."

"I think some of the students are better than the great guns," remarked
Mrs Gordon quietly.

"True, my dear, and that is most natural, for it stands to reason that
some at least of the students must be the great guns of the future in
embryo; and they have the freshness of youth to set against the weight
of erudition."

"The student who preached to us here last Sunday," observed Barret,
"must surely be an embryo great gun, for he treated his subject in a
learned and masterly way that amazed me. From the look of him I would
not have expected even an average discourse."

"That was partly owing to his modest air and reticence," returned the
laird. "If you heard him converse on what he would call metapheesical
subjects, you would perhaps have been still more surprised."

"Well, I hope he will preach to-day," said Barret.

"From which I conclude that you will be one of the boat party. My wife
and Milly make three, myself four; who else?"

"No--don't count me" interrupted the hostess; "I must stay with Flo;
besides, I must visit poor Mrs Donaldson, who is again laid up. But
I'll be glad if you will take Aggy Anderson. Ever since the poor girl
came here for a little change of air she has been longing to go out in
the boat. I really believe it is a natural craving for the free, fresh
breezes of the sea. May she go?"

"By all means; as many as the boat will hold," returned the laird.

It was finally arranged that, besides those already mentioned, Mabberly,
Jackman, MacRummle, Quin, the three boys, Roderick the groom, and Ian
Anderson, as boatman in charge, should cross over to the little church
at Drumquaich, about eight miles distant by water.

While they were getting