he big grate--the wet undignified form of Dickson,
unshaven of cheek and chin and disreputable in garb; the shrouded
figure of Cousin Eugenie, who had sunk into the arm-chair and closed
her eyes; the slim girl, into whose face the weather had whipped a glow
like blossom; and the hostess, with her petticoats kilted and an
ancient mutch on her head.

Mrs. Morran looked once at Saskia, and then did a thing which she had
not done since her girlhood. She curtseyed.

"I'm proud to see ye here, Mem. Off wi' your things, and I'll get ye
dry claes, Losh, ye're fair soppin' And your shoon! Ye maun change
your feet.... Dickson! Awa' up to the loft, and dinna you stir till I
give ye a cry. The leddies will change by the fire. And You,
Mem"--this to Cousin Eugenie--"the place for you's your bed. I'll
kinnle a fire ben the hoose in a jiffey. And syne ye'll have
breakfast--ye'll hae a cup o' tea wi' me now, for the kettle's just on
the boil. Awa' wi' ye. Dickson," and she stamped her foot.

Dickson departed, and in the loft washed his face, and smoked a pipe on
the edge of the bed, watching the mist eddying up the village street.
From below rose the sounds of hospitable bustle, and when after some
twenty minutes' vigil he descended, he found Saskia toasting stockinged
toes by the fire in the great arm-chair, and Mrs. Morran setting the
table.

"Auntie Phemie, hearken to me. We've taken on too big a job for two
men and six laddies, and help we've got to get, and that this very
morning. D'you mind the big white house away up near the hills ayont
the station and east of the Ayr road? It looked like a gentleman's
shooting lodge. I was thinking of trying there. Mercy!"

The exclamation was wrung from him by his eyes settling on Saskia and
noting her apparel. Gone were her thin foreign clothes, and in their
place she wore a heavy tweed skirt cut very short, and thick homespun
stockings, which had been made for some one with larger feet than hers.
A pair of the coarse low-heeled shoes which country folk wear in the
farmyard stood warming by the hearth. She still had her russet jumper,
but round her neck hung a grey wool scarf, of the kind known as a
"Comforter." Amazingly pretty she looked in Dickson's eyes, but with a
different kind of prettiness. The sense of fragility had fled, and he
saw how nobly built she was for all her exquisiteness. She looked like
a queen, he thought, but a queen to go gipsying through the worl