d it with
gladness. It was from his cousin Janet, and the mere sight of it seemed
to revive him like a gust of keen wind from the sea. What had she to
say? About the grumbling of Donald, who seemed to have no more pride in
his pipes, now the master was gone? About the anxiety of his mother over
the reports of the keepers? About the upsetting of a dog-cart on the
road to Lochbuy? He had half resolved to go to the theatre again that
evening--getting, if possible, into some corner where he might pursue
his profound pyschological investigations unseen--but now he thought he
would not go. He would spend the evening in writing a long letter to his
cousin, telling her and the mother about all the beautiful, fine, gay,
summer life he had seen in London--so different from anything they could
have seen in Fort William, or Inverness, or even in Edinburgh. After
dinner he sat down to this agreeable task. What had he to write about
except brilliant rooms, and beautiful flowers, and costumes such as
would have made Janet's eyes wide--of all the delicate luxuries of life,
and happy idleness, and the careless enjoyment of people whose only
thought was about a new pleasure? He gave a minute description of all
the places he had been to see--except the theatre. He mentioned the
names of the people who had been kind to him; but he said nothing about
Gertrude White.

Not that she was altogether absent from his thoughts. Sometimes his
fancy fled away from the sheet of paper before him, and saw strange
things. Was this Fionaghal the Fair Stranger--this maiden who had come
over the seas to the dark shores of the isles--this king's daughter clad
in white, with her yellow hair down to her waist and bands of gold on
her wrists? And what does she sing to the lashing waves but songs of
high courage, and triumph, and welcome to her brave lover coming home
with plunder through the battling seas? Her lips are parted with her
singing, but her glance is bold and keen: she has the spirit of a king's
daughter, let her come from whence she may.

Or is Fionaghal the Fair Stranger this poorly dressed lass who boils the
potatoes over the rude peat fire, and croons her songs of suffering and
of the cruel drowning in the seas, so that from hut to hut they carry
her songs, and the old wives' tears start afresh to think of their brave
sons lost years and years ago?

Neither Fionaghal is she--this beautiful, pale woman, with her sweet,
modern English speech, an