saw the smoking salmon and the bottled beer and the whisky, and when he suddenly found Mairi coming into the room and saying to him, in her sweet Highland fashion, “And are you ferry well, sir?”—­would not his heart warm to the old ways and kindly homeliness of the house in Borva, and would not some glimpse of the happy and half-forgotten time that was now so sadly and strangely remote cause him to break down that barrier between himself and Sheila that this artificial life in the South had placed there?

So the child dreamed, and was happy in dreaming of it.  Sometimes she grew afraid of her project:  she had not had much experience in deception, and the mere concealment of Mairi’s coming was a hard thing to bear.  But surely her husband would take this trick in good part.  It was only, after all, a joke.  To put a little barbaric splendor of decoration into the little smoking-room, to have a scent of peat-smoke in the air, and to have a timid, sweet-voiced, pretty Highland girl suddenly make her appearance, with an odor of the sea about her, as it were, and a look of fresh breezes in the color of her cheeks,—­what mortal man could find fault with this innocent jest?  Sheila’s moments of doubt were succeeded by long hours of joyous confidence, in which a happy light shone on her face.  She went through the house with a brisk step; she sang to herself as she went; she was kinder than ever to the small children who came into the square every forenoon, and whose acquaintance she had very speedily made; she gave each of her crossing-sweepers threepence instead of twopence in passing.  The servants had never seen her in such good spirits; she was exceptionally generous in presenting them with articles of attire; they might have had half the week in holidays if Mr. Lavender had not to be attended to.  A small gentleman of three years of age lived next door, and his acquaintance also she had made by means of his nurse.  At this time his stock of toys, which Sheila had kept carefully renewed, became so big that he might, with proper management, have set up a stall in the Lowther Arcade.  Just before she left Lewis her father had called her to him, and said, “Sheila, I wass wanting to tell you about something.  It is not every one that will care to hef his money given away to poor folk, and it wass many a time I said to myself that when you were married maybe your husband would think you were giving too much money to the poor folk, as you wass doing in Borva.  And it iss this fifty pounds I hef got for you, Sheila, in ten banknotes, and you will take them with you for your own money, that you will not hef any trouble about giving things to people.  And when the fifty pounds will be done, I will send you another fifty pounds; and it will be no difference to me whatever.  And if there is any one in Borva you would be for sending money to, there is your own money; for there is many a one would take the money from Sheila Mackenzie that would not be for taking it from an English stranger in London.  And when you will send it to them, you will send it to me; and I will tek it to them, and will tell them that this money is from my Sheila, and from no one else whatever.”