for a day or two and get into my own ways. Oh dear
me!--this sun--it is too awfully dreadful! When I appear before Mr.
Lemuel again, I shall be a mulatto!"

And as they walked along the burning sands, with the waves monotonously
breaking, the white-sailed yacht came nearer and more near; and,
indeed, the old _Umpire_, broad-beamed and heavy as she was, looked
quite stately and swanlike as she came over the blue water. And they saw
the gig lowered; and the four oars keeping rhythmical time; and
presently they could make out the browned and glad face of Macleod.

"Why did you take so much trouble?" said she to him--and she took his
hand in a very kind way as he stepped on shore. "We could very well have
gone back in the boat."

"Oh, but I want to take you round by Loch Tua," said he, looking with
great gratitude into those friendly eyes. "And it was no trouble at all.
And will you step into the gig now?"

He took her hand and guided her along the rocks until she reached the
boat; and he assisted her father too. Then they pushed off, and it was
with a good swing the men sent the boat through the lapping waves. And
here was Hamish standing by the gangway to receive them; and he was
gravely respectful to the stranger lady, as he assisted her to get up
the small wooden steps; but there was no light of welcome in the keen
gray eyes. He quickly turned away from her to give his orders; for
Hamish was on this occasion skipper, and had donned a smart suit of blue
with brass buttons. Perhaps he would have been prouder of his buttons,
and of himself, and of the yacht he had sailed for so many years, if it
had been any other than Gertrude White who had now stepped on board.

But, on the other hand, Miss White was quite charmed with this shapely
vessel and all its contents. If the frugal ways and commonplace duties
and conversation of Castle Dare had somewhat disappointed her, and had
seemed to her not quite in accordance with the heroic traditions of the
clans, here, at least, was something which she could recognize as
befitting her notion of the name and position of Sir Keith Macleod.
Surely it must be with a certain masterful sense of possession that he
would stand on those white decks, independent of all the world besides,
with those sinewy, sun-browned, handsome fellows ready to go anywhere
with him at his bidding? It is true that Macleod, in showing her over
the yacht, seemed to know far too much about tinned meats; and he