came Miss Macdonald, attired for calling, and beside her that good-looking young sailor. Lady Maud liked boys, especially handsome ones with palpable adoration in their blue eyes.

The professor, coming in very hot about tea-time, found the trio having it like children out in a bieldy bit by the burn, but with the butler solemnly presiding over the fire. A fire which gave James, the under footman, the hugest delight until his enjoyment was crushed out of him by his superior officer. For the butler knew his duty: afternoon tea was afternoon tea wherever her ladyship chose to take it; that is to say, a function at which a footman must preserve an impassive face. So poor James put on the sticks with funeral calm and burnt his fingers with great decorum.

"Here is a lady, professor," said Lady Maud,--"Miss Macdonald--Professor Endorwick,--who will tell you everything you can possibly want to know about the island. She is a mine of useful information; at least I have found her so."

That gracious voice, face, and manner had been a sort of rapture to young Rick Halmar for the last half hour, and when, after launching the others into conversation, she turned to him with the undefinable change in manner she could no more avoid in talking to men than the magnet can keep its influence, his heart gave quite a throb.

"I didn't introduce you," she said, smiling, "because I only know your Christian name; and I'm not sure of that."

"Rick! Rick Halmar," he replied with a blush which took him by surprise; for he was not as a rule self-conscious.

"Rick?" she echoed curiously.

"Eric. My father was a Norwegian. But it was a boshy name and the fellows on the Britannia called me 'Little by Little'--after the book, you know."

She laughed. "A very inappropriate name, Mr. Halmar. You must be six feet."

He shook his head. "Five feet eleven and three-quarters. It's too big for a sailor. You get in the way of the ropes and things."

"Not too big for a man--but listen! the professor is overcome already; how delightful!"

In good sooth he was actually reduced to the position of listener, an isolated assertion of interest being all the speech allowed him as Miss Willina waxed eloquent over the crass superstitions of the islanders and her own select beliefs.

Rick's face grew brimful of smiles.

"Aunt Will is as bad as the best, herself. Why, the other day I carved out a sort of devil,--a thing they worship in the Caribbees,--and she was in quite a taking because it was left out on a harp,--that's a Viking's tomb, Lady Maud. She has some rigmarole about 'tribute to the dead,' their sending back things to work evil to the living. But, do you know, Lady Maud, it's awfully rum, but I couldn't find the thing when I went to look for it yesterday morning."

"You couldn't find it? Mr. Halmar, don't speak loud; don't attract their attention by looking surprised! Was it--the devil, I mean--fearfully ugly?"

"The best I ever made."

"Had it white eyes with a shot stuck in them?"

"Lady Maud! did you find it?"

"Not I, but the professor did. It's a footstep of a discredited belief, and he is going to lecture on it to the British Association. Isn't it perfectly lovely? How we shall all laugh!"

"But you will tell him, of course?"

"Tell him! Why should I? These things are one of my chief joys in life."

Rick Halmar winced. "But don't you see, Lady Maud, it's my fault more or less? I oughtn't to go carving devils and leaving them about. It isn't fair."

She raised her eyebrows. "When you are older, Mr. Halmar, you won't be so eager to accept responsibility. By the way, does yours extend to another devil of the same sort which was found on Grâda Sands?"

He let his head drop into his hands in comic despair. "How one's sins do find one out! It must be the one Aunt Will flung into the Minch. Everything comes round sooner or later to the sands. Has the professor got it too?"

"No, Mr. Halmar. I have it."

"You! Oh, Lady Maud--I am sorry."

"You well may be. I have put it into my own room because the professor declared it was genuine--a real savage fate. No--that isn't true, so don't distress yourself. I took a fancy to it. I have a habit of taking fancies to things and to people; so there it shall remain."

Rick's face lit up. "Let me make you a better one," he began.

"I said, Mr. Halmar, that I took a fancy to it; and now, don't you think you should make your confession like a good boy?"

He made it very prettily, but with a frank enjoyment of the mistake, which was infectious. So much so, that the chief sufferer, stimulated into unusual playfulness by Miss Willina's wit, actually went into the house for his discredited belief and brought it out for her to burn.

So, with much laughter, they stood round the fire, causing poor James almost to burst under his efforts after dignity, till suddenly, with something between a chuckle and a cough, the butler himself gave way into the remark that "I 'adn't made a Guy Forks--kck-kh-kh--since 'e was a boy,--kh-kh-kh,--but if 'er ladyship pleased, Jeames could run round to the gun-room for some powder and 'e'd 'ave some squibs ready in no time."

So Numbo Jumbo was burnt with all the honours, and the butler, going back for his own tea to the housekeeper's room, hummed, "Remember, remember, the fifth of November," until the cook, with a snort, asked wherever to goodness he had picked up such a vulgar ditty.

"Now I have no doubt all you learned people think me very foolish," said Miss Willina, drawing on her gloves with the air of one who has completed a good work; "but I really am immensely relieved in my mind. I had a presentiment about that devil of Rick's; besides, these old superstitions invariably have their origin in some fundamental fact or law of Nature. Don't you think so, professor?"

"Undoubtedly, my dear madam; the Folklore Society--"

But Miss Willina had a profound contempt for all societies and proclaimed it cheerfully. "Therefore, the only remaining thing to be done," she continued, shaking her head at Rick, "is to make restitution for that naughty boy's mischief. So, if you will walk over to Eval some day, Mr. Endorwick, I will give you that bone ring with the Runic inscription about which I was telling you."

"My dear lady," cried the professor with greed in his eyes, "I really could not dream--"

"I don't want to give it to you, of course," she went on frankly; "but my brother says it should be in a museum; so you can put 'Given by Miss Macdonald through Professor Endorwick' on the ticket. And, by the bye, it was found on Grâda and Malcolm, Aig says."

Meanwhile Lady Maud had turned to Rick with a quizzical smile. "Do you accept the responsibility of my fate, Mr. Halmar? or shall I have a private auto-da-fe in my room?"

The boy's face positively shone with pleasure as he took her hand to say goodbye.

"I couldn't do anything that would bring you harm, I think--you are too--too beautiful." The absolute simplicity of the statement rendered it inoffensive, and Lady Maud laughed.

"Take your nephew away, Miss Macdonald; he is paying me compliments."

"I don't wonder at it," retorted the little lady, nodding her head, "and compliments are pleasant things; at least, I used to find them so."