Must did hear, and must have black shame to think of. I go over all that I have said to you already? finished, Mungo; are you listening? Did he he-look vexed? But it does not matter, it is finished, and I have been a very foolish girl." "But that needna' prevent me tellin' ye that the puir man's awa' clean gyte." She smiled just the ghost of a smile at that, then put her hands upon her ears. "Oh!" she cried despairingly, "have I not a friend left?" Mungo sighed and said no more then, but went to Annapla and sought relief for his feelings in bilingual wrangling with that dark abigail. At low tide beggars from Glencroe came to his door with yawning pokes and all their old effrontery: he astounded them by the fiercest of receptions, condemned them all eternally for limmers and sorners, lusty rogues and vagabonds. 66 Awa'! awa'!" he cried, an implacable face against their whining protestations—“ Awa', or I'll gie ye the gairde! If I was my uncle Erchie, I wad pit an end to your argy-bargying wi' hail frae a gun!" But to Annapla it was, "Puir deevils, it's gey hard to gie them the back o' the haun' and them sae used to rougher times in Doom. What'll they think o' us? It's sic a doon-come, but we maun be hainin' seein' Leevie's lost her jo, and no' ither way clear oot o' the bit. I'm seein' a toom girnel and done beef here lang afore next Martinmas." These plaints were to a woman blissfully beyond comprehending the full import of them, for so much. was Annapla taken up with her Gift, so misty and remote the realms of Gaelic dream wherein she moved, that the little Lowland oddity's perturbation was beneath her serious attention. Olivia had that day perhaps the bitterest of her life. With love outside-calling in the evening and fluting in the bower, and ever (as she thought) occupied with her image even when farther apart -she had little fault to find with the shabby interior of her home. Now that love was lost, she sat with her father, oppressed and cold as it had been a vault. Even in his preoccupation he could not fail to see how ill she seemed that morning: it appeared to him that she had the look of a mountain birch stricken by the first of winter weather. "My dear," he said, with a tenderness that had been some time absent from their relations, "you must be taking a change of air. I'm a poor parent not to have seen before how much you need it." He hastened to correct what he fancied from her face was a misapprehension. "I am speaking for your red cheeks, my dear, believe me; I'm wae to see you like that." "I will do whatever you wish, father," said Olivia in much agitation. Coerced she was iron, coaxed she was clay. "I have not been a very good daughter to you, father; after this I will be trying to be better." His face reddened; his heart beat at this capitulation of his rebel: he rose from his chair and took her into his arms—an odd display for a man so long stone-cold but to his dreams. "My dear, my dear!" said he, "but in one detail that need never again be named between us two, you have been the best of girls, and, God knows, I am not the pattern parent! Her arm went round his neck, and she wept on his breast. "Sour and dour-" said he. "No, no!" she cried. "And poor to penury." "All the more need for a loving child. There are only the two of us." He held her at arm's-length and looked her wistfully in the wet wan face and saw his wife Christina there. "By heaven!" he thought, "it is no wonder that this man should hunt her." "You have made me happy this day, Olivia,” said he; "at least half happy. I dare not mention what more was needed to make me quite content." "You need not," said she. "I know, and that— and that-is over too. I am just your own Olivia." 'What!" he cried elate; "No more at all." 66 no more?" "Now praise God!" said he. 66 I have been robbed of credit and estate, and even of my name; I have seen king and country foully done by, and black affront brought on our people, and still there's something left to live for." CHAPTER XXVI. THE DUKE'S BALL FOR Some days Count Victor chafed at the dull and somewhat squalid life of the inn. He found himself regarded coldly among strangers; the flageolet sounded no longer in the private parlour; the Chamberlain stayed away. And if Drimdarroch had seemed ill to find from Doom, he was absolutely undiscoverable here. Perhaps there was less eagerness in the search because other affairs would for ever intrude-not the Cause (that now, to tell the truth, he somehow regarded moribund; little wonder after eight years' inaction!) nor the poignant home-thoughts that made his ride through Scotland melancholy, but affairs more recent, and Olivia's eyes possessed him. A morning had come of terrific snow, and made all the colder, too, his sojourn in the country of MacCailen Mor. Now he looked upon mountains white and far, phantom valleys gulping chilly winds, the sea alone with some of its familiar aspect, yet it, too, leaden to eye and heart as it lay in a perpetual haze between the headlands and lazily rose and fell in the bays. The night of the ball was to him like a reprieve. From the darkness of those woody deeps below Dunchuach the castle gleamed with fires, and a Highland welcome illumined the greater part of the avenue from the town with flambeaux, in whose radiance the black pines, the huge beeches, the waxen shrubbery round the lawns all shrouded, seemed to creep closer round the edifice to hear the sounds of revelry and learn what charms the human world when the melodious winds are still and the weather is cold, and out of doors poor thickets must shiver in appalling darkness. A gush of music met Count Victor at the threshold; dresses were rustling, a caressing warmth sighed. round him, and his host was very genial. "M. Montaiglon," said his Grace in French, "you will pardon our short notice; my good friend, M. Montaiglon, my dear; my wife, M. Montaiglon "But M. Montaiglon merely in the inns, my lord," corrected the Frenchman, smiling. "I should be the last to accept the honour of your hospitality under a nom de guerre." The Duke bowed. "M. le Comte," he said, "to be quite as candid as yourself, I pierced your incognito even in the dark. My dear sir, a Scots traveller named for the time being the Baron Ilay once had the privilege of sharing a glass coach with your uncle between Paris and Dunkerque; 'tis a story that will keep. Meanwhile, as I say, M. Montaiglon will pardon the shortness of our notice; in these wilds one's dancing-shoes are presumed to be ever airing at the fire. You must consider these doors as open as the woods so long as you are in this neighbourhood. I have some things I should like to show you that you might find not wholly uninteresting a Raphael, a Rembrandt (so reputed), and several Venetians-not much, in faith, but regarding which I should value your criticism Some other guests arrived, his Grace's speech was broken, and Count Victor passed on, skirting the dancers, who to his unaccustomed eyes presented. features strange yet picturesque as they moved in the puzzling involutions of a country dance. It was a noble hall hung round with tapestry and bossed with Highland targets, trophies of arms and the о |