“Of course you keep her in-doors then,” said the younger man, already assuming some little charge over Sheila’s comfort.

The father laughed aloud at this simplicity on the part of the Englishman:  “If we wass to keep in-doors in the bad weather, it would be all the winter we would be in-doors!  There iss no day at all Sheila will not be out some time or other; and she is never so well as in the hard weather, when she will be out always in the snow and the frost, and hef plenty of exercise and amusement.”

“She is not often ailing, I suppose?” said Lavender.

“She is as strong as a young pony, that is what Sheila is,” said her father proudly.  “And there is no one in the island will run so fast, or walk so long without tiring, or carry things from the shore as she will—­not one.”

But here he suddenly checked himself.  “That is,” he said with some little expression of annoyance, “I wass saying Sheila could do that if it wass any use; but she will not do such things, like a fisherman’s lass that hass to keep in the work.”

“Oh, of course not,” said Lavender hastily.  “But still, you know, it is pleasant to know she is so strong and well.”

And at this moment Sheila herself appeared, accompanied by her great deerhound, and testifying by the bright color in her face to the assurances of her health her father had been giving.  She had just come up and over the hill from Borvabost, while as yet breakfast had not been served.  Somehow or other, Lavender fancied she never looked so bright and bold and handsome as in the early morning, with the fresh sea-air tingling the color in her cheeks, and the sunlight shining in the clear eyes or giving from time to time a glimpse of her perfect teeth.  But this morning she did not seem quite so frankly merry as usual.  She patted the deerhound’s head, and rather kept her eyes away from her father and his companion.  And then she took Bras away to give him his breakfast, just as Ingram appeared to bid her good-morning and ask her what she meant by being about so early.

How anxiously Lavender now began to calculate on the remaining days of their stay in Borva!  They seemed so few.  He got up at preposterously early hours to make each day as long as possible, but it slipped away with a fatal speed; and already he began to think of Stornoway and the Clansman and his bidding good-bye to Sheila.  He had said no more to her of any pledge as regarded the future.  He was content to see that she was pleased to be with him; and happy indeed were their rambles about the island, their excursions in Sheila’s boat, their visits to the White Water in search of salmon.  Nor had he yet spoken to Sheila’s father.  He knew that Mackenzie knew, and both seemed to take it for granted that no good could come of a formal explanation until Sheila herself should make her wishes known.  That, indeed, was the only aspect of the case that apparently presented itself to the old King of Borva.