ed; there was nothing but the bare wood of the floor and the
couches and the table; with a match-box saturated with wet, an empty
wine-bottle, a newspaper five months old, a rusty corkscrew, a patch of
dirty water--the leakage from the skylight overhead.

That was what Hamish saw.

What Macleod saw, as he stood there absently staring at the bare wood,
was very different. It was a beautiful, comfortable saloon that he saw,
all brightly furnished and gilded, and there was a dish of
flowers--heather and rowan-berries intermixed--on the soft red cover of
the table. And who is this that is sitting there, clad in sailor-like
blue and white, and laughing, as she talks in her soft English speech?
He is telling her that, if she means to be a sailor's bride, she must
give up the wearing of gloves on board ship, although, to be sure, those
gloved small hands look pretty enough as they rest on the table and
play with a bit of bell-heather. How bright her smile is. She is in a
mood for teasing people. The laughing face, but for the gentleness of
the eyes, would be audacious. They say that the width between those
long-lashed eyes is a common peculiarity of the artist's face; but she
is no longer an artist; she is only the brave young yachtswoman who
lives at Castle Dare. The shepherds know her, and answer her in the
Gaelic when she speaks to them in passing; the sailors know her, and
would adventure their lives to gratify her slightest wish; and the
bearded fellows who live their solitary life far out at Dubh Artach
lighthouse, when she goes out to them with a new parcel of books and
magazines, do not know how to show their gladness at the very sight of
her bonnie face. There was once an actress of the same name, but this is
quite a different woman. And to-morrow--do you know what she is going to
do to-morrow?--to-morrow she is going away in this very yacht to a loch
in the distant island of Lewis, and she is going to bring back with her
some friends of hers who live there; and there will be high holiday at
Castle Dare. An actress? Her cheeks are too sun-browned for the cheeks
of an actress.

"Well, sir?" Hamish said, at length; and Macleod started.

"Very well, then," he said, impatiently, "why don't you go on deck and
find out where the leakage of the skylight is?"

Hamish was not used to being addressed in this fashion, and walked away
with a proud and hurt air. As he ascended the companion-way, he was
muttering to himself in