when Ragnor will get home. He will have some
reasoning with his men to do, he cannot spare many of them."

"I have a good idea," said Mistress Brodie. "I will give a dance on
Friday night for the enlisting officers, and we will invite all the
presentable young men, and all the prettiest girls, to meet them."

"But you will be too late on Friday. The cutter and her crew will
leave Thursday morning early," said Ian.

"Then say Wednesday night."

"That might do. I could tell the men freshly enlisted to wear a white
ribbon in their coats----"

"No, no, no!" cried Rahal. "What are you saying, Ian? A white favour
is a Stuart favour. You would set the men fighting in the very dance
room. There is no excuse in the Orkneys for a Stuart memory."

"I was not thinking of the Stuarts. Have they not done bothering
yet?"

"In the Scotch heart the Stuart lives forever," said Rahal, with a
sigh.

But the dance was decided on and some preparations made for it as soon
as breakfast was over. Ian was enthusiastic on the matter and Thora
caught his enthusiasm very readily, and before night, all Kirkwall was
preparing to feast and rejoice because England was going to make the
great Northern Bear--"the Bear that walks like a man"--stay in the
North where he belonged.

CHAPTER V

SUNNA AND THORA

Love, the old, old troubler of the world.

Love has reasons, of which reason knows nothing.

Alas, how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain
And life is never the same again.

No sooner was Mrs. Brodie's intention known, than all her friends were
eager to help her. There was truly but little time between Monday
morning and Wednesday night; but many hands make light work, and old
and young offered their services in arranging for what it pleased all
to consider as a kind of national thanksgiving.

The unanimity of this kindness gave Rahal a slight attack of a certain
form of jealousy, to which she had been subject for many years, and
she asked her husband, as she had done often before, "Why is it, Coll,
that every woman in the town is eager to help and encourage Barbara
if she only speaks of having a dance or dinner; but if I, thy wife, am
the giver of pleasure, I am left to do all without help or any show of
interest. It troubles me, Coll."

And Coll answered as he always did answer--"It is thy superiority,
Rahal. Is there any woman we know, wh