ut with you, and do just whatever you are doing--"

Lady Macleod started.

"How long do you propose this visit should last?" she said.

"Oh, I don't know," he said, hastily. "But you know, mother, you would
not hurry your guests; for I am sure you would be as proud as any one to
show them that we had things worth seeing. We should take her to the
cathedral at Iona on some moonlight night; and then some day we could go
out to the Dubh Artach lighthouse--and you know how the men are
delighted to see a new face--"

"You would never think of that, Keith," his cousin said. "Do you think a
London young lady would have the courage to be swung on to the rocks and
to climb up all those steps outside?"

"She has the courage for that or for anything," said he. "And then, you
know, she would be greatly interested in the clouds of puffins and the
skarts behind Staffa, and we would take her to the great caves in the
cliffs at Gribun; and I have no doubt she would like to go out to one of
the uninhabited islands."

Lady Macleod had preserved a stern silence. When she had so far yielded
as to promise to ask those two strangers to come to Castle Dare on their
round of the Western Islands, she had taken it for granted that their
visit would necessarily be of the briefest; but the projects of which
Keith Macleod now spoke seemed to suggest something like a summer passed
at Dare. And he went on talking in this strain, nervously delighted with
the pictures that each promised excursion called up. Miss White would be
charmed with this, and delighted with that. Janet would find her so
pleasant a companion; the mother would be inclined to pet her at first
sight.

"She is already anxious to make your acquaintance mother," said he to
the proud old dame who sat there ominously silent. "And she could think
of no other message to send you than this--it belonged to her mother."

He opened the little package--of old lace, or something of that
kind--and handed it to his mother; and at the same time, his impetuosity
carrying him on, he said that perhaps, the mother would write now and
propose the visit in the summer.

At this Lady Macleod's surprise overcame her reserve.

"You must be mad, Keith! To write in the middle of winter and send an
invitation for the summer! And really the whole thing is so
extraordinary--a present coming to me from an absolute stranger--- and
that stranger an actress who is quite unknown to any one I know--"

"Mot