dignities of life which they never ignored or made light of. Whatever the fare might be--and on most occasions it was simple enough--the table was always so laid that the best in the land could have been welcomed to it without shame. The damask was darned, but yet it had a sheen like satin on it such as they do not achieve on the looms of the present day.

Isla closed the door and, steadying herself against it, spoke to the old man who had served them as boy and man for five-and-forty years.

"There is a letter from Mr. Malcolm, Diarmid. He is on his way home."

Diarmid set down his tray rather suddenly, so that the glasses rang as they touched one another.

"Yes--Miss Isla?" he said almost feverishly. "But why will he come home? Is it leave he is having already so soon?"

"No, Diarmid. He is leaving the Army for good. I am telling you, because you love us all so much and understand everything. This news must be kept from the General."

"Yes, Miss Isla--but how? If Mr. Malcolm comes home he comes home, and the General will see him."

"Oh, yes, but he must think only that he is home on furlough. We must make up something that will satisfy him--for a time, at least."

"Yes, Miss Isla, and if Mr. Malcolm is to come home what will he do here in the glen, for sure he is a great big, strong gentleman--glory be to God--and it is not thinkable that he can be here doing nothing?"

"I haven't got so far as that, Diarmid," said Isla, wearily. "My head aches and aches with thinking. I sometimes wish I could fall asleep at night and never waken any more."

"Yes, Miss Isla, but then the sun would go down upon the glen for efer and efer," said the old man with twitching lips.

He had carried her as a baby in his arms, he had set her almost before she could toddle upon the back of the old sheltie that now lived, a fat pensioner, in the paddock behind the house; he had watched her grow from sweet girlhood to womanhood, and his heart had rebelled against the hardness of her destiny. She had never had her due. Other girls in her position had married well, had happy homes and devoted husbands, and little children about their knees, while she, the flower of them all, remained unplucked.

Diarmid, a religious man--as befitted one who had lived such an uneventful and happy life--was sometimes tempted to ask whether the God whom he worshipped had fallen asleep over the affairs of Achree. Of late, his rebellion had become acute. In the silence of his dingy pantry he had even been known to shake his fist over the silver he was polishing and to utter words not becoming on the lips of so circumspect a servant.

"Say nothing to the others, Diarmid. Let them think that Mr. Malcolm is only home on furlough," she pursued. "I must make it right with my father somehow. I'll go to him now and tell him about the letter."

"Yes, Miss Isla. And Mr. Malcolm, he is quite well, I hope?"

"Oh, yes, he is always well. Perhaps, if he were not--but there, I must guard my tongue. The days are very dark over Achree, Diarmid, and it may be that its sun will soon set for ever."

"God forbid! He will nefer let that happen--no, nor anypody else, forby," he said vaguely. "Keep up your brave heart, Miss Isla. I haf seen it fery dark over the loch of a morning, and again, by midday, it would clear and the sun come out. It will be like that now, nefer fear."

But though brave words were on the old man's tongue, black despair was in his heart. He was only a servingman, but he could read between the lines, and he knew that this sudden and unexpected home-coming of the ne'er-do-weel meant something dire for Achree. His hands trembled very much as he proceeded with his table duties, while his young mistress made her way across the hall again to the library, a queer little octagon room on the south side of the house, with no view to speak of from its high, narrow windows that looked out on the rising slope of a heather hill which made the beginning of the moor of Creagh. It was, however, the snuggest room in the whole house, for which reason it was used almost entirely by the General as a living place.

He was frail now, going to bed early and rising late, and seldom caring to ascend the winding stairs to his bedroom after he had once left it.

Isla entered softly, and his dull ear failed to apprise him of the opening of the door. She was thus able to look at him before he was aware of her presence. Once a very tall man, standing six feet two in his stockings in his prime, his fine figure was now sadly shrunk. He sat in a straight, high-backed chair--principally because there were very few of the other sort in the old Castle of Achree, and because there was no money to buy them with, but she could see the droop of the shoulders as they rested against the small cushion that she had filled with down to give him a little ease. He wore a velvet skullcap, from the edge of which there showed a fringe of beautiful silvery hair. His feet, in the big loose slippers of the old man, were raised on a hassock and he was holding the newspaper high before his eyes. Isla observed, from its continuous flutter, that his hands were a little more shaky than usual.

His face was very fine. In his youth Mackinnon of Achree had been the handsomest man in West Perthshire, and he was reported to have broken his full complement of hearts. Even now the classic outline of his face was plainly discernible, and he reminded one of some old war-horse that was past service, but that retained to the end all the noble characteristics that had distinguished him in the heyday of his glory.

"What news to-day, father?" asked Isla's fresh, clear voice.

When he heard it he rose to his feet with that fine courtesy towards women which had never failed him.

She laid a hand in gentle reprimand on his arm.

"Now, how often have I told you, old dear, that you are not to be so ceremonious with me? You can keep your fine manners for the great ladies who never, never now come to Achree. Your little Isla knows that they are there, and she doesn't need ocular demonstration of their presence."

He smiled and patted her cheek. He was an old man, now in his seventy-fifth year. He had been so long on foreign service that he had not married till late in life, and he had then made a marriage which had been the one mistake of his life, and into which he had been led by the softness of his own heart. Yet in battle, and in the affairs of men, he had been a terrific person, to be avoided by those who had offended him.

The fruits of that marriage, unfortunately, had come out in the son and heir in whose veins ran the wild blood of the woman who had broken Mackinnon's heart. There was no fight in the General now. He was a broken old man--very gentle, not altogether comprehending, a mere cypher in his own house, though his honour and his prestige were more jealously guarded by his household than they had ever been when he could guard them himself.

His health was frail, but he suffered apparently from no disease. The doctor from Comrie who paid a weekly visit often assured Isla that, with care, there was no reason why her father should not live for other ten years. Only he mustn't have any shock. He so often insisted upon this that Isla