r face for his forthcoming picture. She had other things
to think about now, when she wrote to Castle Dare.

For one day Lady Macleod went into her son's room and said to him, "Here
is a letter, Keith, which I have written to Miss White. I wish you to
read it."

He jumped to his feet, and hastily ran his eyes over the letter. It was
a trifle formal, it is true; but it was kind, and it expressed the hope
that Miss White and her father would next summer visit Castle Dare. The
young man threw his arms round his mother's neck and kissed her. "That
is like a good mother," said he. "Do you know how happy she will be when
she receives this message from you?"

Lady Macleod left him the letter to address. He read it over carefully;
and though he saw that the handwriting was the handwriting of his
mother, he knew that the spirit that had prompted these words was that
of the gentle cousin Janet.

This concession had almost been forced from the old lady by the patience
and mild persistence of Janet Macleod; but if anything could have
assured her that she had acted properly in yielding, it was the answer
which Miss Gertrude White sent in return. Miss White wrote that letter
several times over before sending it off, and it was a clever piece of
composition. The timid expressions of gratitude; the hints of the
writer's sympathy with the romance of the Highlands and the Highland
character; the deference shown by youth to age; and here and there just
the smallest glimpse of humor, to show that Miss White, though very
humble and respectful and all that, was not a mere fool. Lady Macleod
was pleased by this letter. She showed it to her son one night at
dinner. "It is a pretty hand," she remarked, critically.

Keith Macleod read it with a proud heart. "Can you not gather what kind
of woman she is from that letter alone?" he said, eagerly. "I can almost
hear her talk in it. Janet, will you read it too?"

Janet Macleod took the small sheet of perfumed paper and read it calmly,
and handed it back to her aunt. "It is a nice letter," said she. "We
must try to make Dare as bright as maybe when she comes to see us, that
she will not go back to England with a bad account of the Highland
people." That was all that was said at the time about the promised visit
of Miss Gertrude White to Castle Dare. It was only as a visitor that
Lady Macleod had consented to receive her. There was no word mentioned
on either side of anything further than that.