he said, "the arrival of the pedlar!
A snuffy old man comes into the room, with a huge bundle wrapped up in
dirty waterproof. Then there is a wild clatter of Gaelic. But suddenly,
don't you know, there are one or two glances at me; and the Gaelic
stops; and Duncan or John, or whatever they call him, begins to stammer
in English, and I am shown coarse stockings, and bundles of wool, and
drugget petticoats, and cotton handkerchiefs. And then Miss Macleod buys
a number of things which I know she does not want; and I am looked on as
a strange creature because I do not purchase a bundle of wool or a pair
of stockings fit for a farmer. The Autolycus of Mull is not impressive,
pappy. Oh, but I forgot the dramatic surprise--that also was to be an
event, I have no doubt. I was suddenly introduced to a child dressed in
a kilt; and I was to speak to him; and I suppose I was to be profoundly
moved when I heard him speak to me in my own tongue in this out of the
world place. My own tongue! The horrid little wretch has not an _h_."

"Well, there's no pleasing you, Gerty," said he.

"I don't want to be pleased; I want to be let alone," said she.

But she said this with just a little too much sharpness; for her father
was, after all, a human being; and it did seem to him to be too bad that
he should be taunted in this fashion, when he had done his best to
preserve a wholly neutral attitude.

"Let me tell you this, madam," said he, in a playful manner, but with
some decision in his tone, "that you may live to have the pride taken
out of you. You have had a good deal of flattery and spoiling; and you
may find out you have been expecting too much. As for these Macleods
here, I will say this--although I came here very much against my own
inclination--that I defy any one to have been more kind, and courteous,
and attentive than they have been to you. I don't care. It is not my
business, as I tell you. But I must say, Gerty, that when you make a
string of complaints as the only return for all their hospitality--their
excessive and almost burdensome hospitality--I think that even I am
bound to say a word. You forget how you come here. You, a perfect
stranger, come here as engaged to marry the old lady's only son--to
dispossess her--very probably to make impossible a match that she had
set her heart on. And both she and her niece--you understand what I
mean--instead of being cold, or at least formal, to you, seem to me to
think of nothing f