there
when the mail arrives at six in the morning," said Tony, recovering
himself, though in considerable confusion. "Skeffy's room is all ready,
isn't it?"

"To be sure it is; and very nice and comfortable it looks too;" and as
she spoke, she arose and went into the little room, on which she and
Jenny had expended any amount of care and trouble. "But, Tony dear,"
she cried out, "what's become of Alice Lyle's picture? I put it over the
fireplace myself, this morning."

"And I took it down again, mother. Skeffy never knew Alice,--never saw
her."

"It was n't for that I put it there; it was because she was a handsome
lassie, and it's always a pleasant sight to look upon. Just bring it
back again; the room looks nothing without it."

"No, no; leave it in your own room, in which it has always been," said
he, almost sternly. "And now about dinner to-morrow; I suppose we'd
better make no change, but just have it at three, as we always do."

"Your grand friend will think it's luncheon, Tony."

"He 'll learn his mistake when it comes to tea-time; but I 'll go and
see if there 's not a salmon to be had at Carrig-a-Rede before I start;
and if I 'm lucky, I 'll bring you a brace of snipe back with me."

"Do so, Tony; and if Mr. Gregg was to offer you a little seakale, or
even some nice fresh celery--Eh, dear, he 's off, and no minding me! He
's a fine true-hearted lad," muttered she, as she reseated herself at
her work; "but I wonder what's become of all his high spirits, and the
merry ways that he used to have."

Tony was not successful in his pursuit of provender. There was a heavy
sea on the shore, and the nets had been taken up; and during his whole
walk he never saw a bird He ate a hurried dinner when he came back,
and, taking one more look at Skeffy's room to see whether it looked as
comfortable as he wished it, he set out for Coleraine.

Now, though his mind was very full of his coming guest, in part
pleasurably, and in part with a painful consciousness of his inability
to receive him handsomely, his thoughts would wander off at every moment
to Dolly Stewart, and to her return home, which he felt convinced was
still more or less connected with his own freak. The evening service was
going on in the meeting-house as he passed, and he could hear the swell
of the voices in the last hymn that preceded the final prayer, and he
suddenly bethought him that he would take a turn by the Burnside and
have a few minutes' talk