ith
a subscription for a bell for the Free Church at Iona. The deer have
been down at John Maclean's barley again. Would I like to visit the
weaver at Iona who has such a wonderful turn for mathematics? and would
I like to know the man at Salen who has the biographies of all the great
men of the time in his head?"

Miss White had worked herself up to a pretty pitch of contemptuous
indignation; her father was almost beginning to believe that it was
real.

"It is all very well for the Macleods to interest themselves with these
trumpery little local matters. They play the part of grand patron; the
people are proud to honor them; it is a condescension when they remember
the name of the crofter's youngest boy. But as for me--when I am taken
about--well, I do not like being stared at as if they thought I was
wearing too fine clothes. I don't like being continually placed in a
position of inferiority through my ignorance--an old fool of a boatman
saying 'Bless me!' when I have to admit that I don't know the difference
between a sole and a flounder. I don't want to know. I don't want to be
continually told. I wish these people would meet me on my own ground. I
wish the Macleods would begin to talk after dinner about the Lord
Chamberlain's interference with the politics of burlesque, and then
perhaps they would not be so glib. I am tired of hearing about John
Maclean's boat, and Donald Maclean's horse, and Sandy Maclean's refusal
to pay the road-tax. And as for the drinking of whiskey that these
sailors get through--well, it seems to me that the ordinary condition of
things is reversed here altogether; and if they ever put up an asylum in
Mull, it will be a lunatic asylum for incurable abstainers."

"Now, now, Gerty!" said her father; but all the same he rather liked to
see his daughter get on her high horse, for she talked with spirit, and
it amused him. "You must remember that Macleod looks on this as a
holiday-time, and perhaps he may be a little lax in his regulations. I
have no doubt it is because he is so proud to have you on board his
yacht that he occasionally gives the men an extra glass; and I am sure
it does them no harm, for they seem to be as much in the water as out of
it."

She paid no heed to this protest. She was determined to give free speech
to her sense of wrong, and humiliation, and disappointment.

"What has been the great event since ever we came here--the wildest
excitement the island can afford?" s