on end, his eyes starting out of his head, and his hands
uplifted in bewilderment. This work of art was the production of Miss
Carry, who, on hearing the knock at the door, had whipped into the room,
placed her bit of savage satire over the mantelpiece, and whipped out
again. But her deadly malice so far failed of its purpose that, instead
of inflicting any annoyance, it most effectually broke the embarrassment
of Miss Gertrude's entrance and introduction to the major.

"Carry has no great love for the Highlands," she said, laughing and
slightly blushing at the same time; "but she need not have prepared so
cruel a welcome for you. Won't you sit down, Major Stuart? Papa will be
here directly."

"I think it is uncommonly clever," the major said, fixing his one eye on
the paper as if he would give Miss White distinctly to understand that
he had not come to stare at her--"Perhaps she will like us better when
she knows more about us."

"Do you think," said Miss White, demurely, "that it is possible for any
one born in the South to learn to like the bagpipes?"

"No," said Macleod, quickly--and it was not usual for him to break in in
this eager way about a usual matter of talk--"that is all a question of
association. If you had been brought up to associate the sound of the
pipes with every memorable thing--with the sadness of a funeral, and the
welcome of friends come to see you, and the pride of going away to
war--then you would understand why 'Lord Lovat's Lament,' or the
'Farewell to Gibraltar,' or the 'Heights of Alma'--why these bring the
tears to a Highlander's eyes. The pibrochs preserve our legends for us,"
he went on to say, in rather an excited fashion, for he was obviously
nervous, and perhaps a trifle paler than usual. "They remind us of what
our families have done in all parts of the world, and there is not one
you do not associate with some friend or relative who is gone away, or
with some great merrymaking, or with the death of one who was dear to
you. You never saw that--the boat taking the coffin across the loch, and
the friends of the dead sitting with bowed heads, and the piper at the
bow playing the slow Lament to the time of the oars. If you had seen
that, you would know what the 'Cumhadh na Cloinne' is to a Highlander.
And if you have a friend come to see you, what is it first tells you of
his coming? When you can hear nothing for the waves, you can hear the
pipes! And if you were going into a battle,