ards Kinlossie. No
place could be better than that for his solitary luncheon. He would go
there.

Descending the cliffs, he gained the road, and was walking along towards
the selected spot, when the sound of wheels arrested him. Looking up,
he saw the waggonette turn sharp round the projecting cliff, and
approach him at a walk. He experienced a little depression of spirit,
for there was no one in it, only the groom on the box. Milly would be
sorely disappointed!

"Mrs Moss has not come, I see," he said, as the groom reined up.

"Oo, ay, sir, she's come. But she iss a queer leddy. She's been
chumpin' in an' oot o' the waginette a' the way up, like a whutret, to
admire the scenery, as she says. When we cam' to the heed o' the pass
she chumped oot again, an' telt me to drive on slow, an wait at the futt
o' the first hull for her. She's no far ahint."

"I'll go and meet her. You can drive on, slowly."

Barret hurried forward with feelings of considerable uncertainty as to
whether this chance of meeting his mother-in-law to be (he hoped!)
alone, and in these peculiar circumstances, would be an advantage or
otherwise. She might be annoyed by a sudden interruption in "admiring
the scenery." There would be the awkwardness of having to introduce
himself, and she might be fatigued after all her "chumpin'" in and out
of the waggonette.

He was still pondering these points while he walked smartly forward,
turned the projecting cliff above referred to, and all but overturned
the identical little old lady whom he had run down on his bicycle, weeks
before, in London!

To say that these two drew back and gazed at each other intently--the
lady quivering and pale, the youth aghast and red--is to give but a
feeble account of the situation.

"Young man," she said, indignantly, in a low, repressed voice, "you have
a peculiar talent for assaulting ladies."

"Madam," explained the youth, growing desperate, "you are right. I
certainly have a talent--at least a misfortune--of that sort--"

He stopped short, for, being quite overwhelmed, he knew not what to say.

"It is sad," continued the little old lady in a tone of contempt, "that
a youth like you should so much belie your looks. It was so mean of you
to run away without a word of apology, just like a bad little boy, for
fear of being scolded--not that I cared much for being run down with
that horrid bicycle, for I was not hurt--though I _might_ have been
killed--b