They were a long time finding anything in that volume.  When they did find it, behold! it was one of Mrs. Lorraine’s songs, and that young lady said if Mrs. Lavender would only allow herself to be superseded for a few minutes—­And so Sheila walked, with her head down, to the conservatory, which was at the other end of the piano; and Mrs. Lorraine not only sung this French song, but sang every one of the verses; and at the end of it she had quite forgotten that Sheila had promised to sing.

“You are very sensitive,” she said to Sheila, coming into the conservatory.

“I am very stupid,” Sheila said with her face burning.  “But it is a long time since I will see the Highlands—­and Mr. Ingram was talking of the places I know—­and—­and so—­”

“I understand well enough,” said Mrs. Lorraine tenderly, as if Sheila were a mere child in her hands.  “But you must not get your eyes red.  You have to sing some of those Highland songs for us yet, when the gentlemen come in.  Come up to my room and I will make your eyes all right.  Oh, do not be afraid!  I shall not bring you down like Lady Leveret.  Did you ever see anything like that woman’s face to-night?  It reminds me of the window of an oil-and-color shop.  I wonder she does not catch flies with her cheeks.”

So all the people, Sheila learned that night, were going away from London, and soon she and her husband would join in the general stampede of the very last dwellers in town.  But Mairi?  What was to become of her after that little plot had been played out?  Sheila could not leave Mairi to see London by herself:  she had been enjoying beforehand the delight of taking the young girl about and watching the wonder of her eyes.  Nor could she fairly postpone Mairi’s visit, and Mairi was coming up in another couple of days.

On the morning on which the visitor from the far Hebrides was to make her appearance in London, Sheila felt conscious of a great hypocrisy in bidding good-bye to her husband.  On some excuse or other she had had breakfast ordered early, and he found himself ready at half-past nine to go out for the day.

“Frank,” she said, “will you come in to lunch at two?”

“Why?” he asked:  he did not often have luncheon at home.

“I will go into the Park with you in the afternoon if you like,” she said:  all the scene had been diligently rehearsed on one side, before.

Lavender was a little surprised, but he was in an amiable mood.

“All right!” he said.  “Have something with olives in it.  Two, sharp.”

With that he went out, and Sheila, with a wild commotion at her heart, saw him walk away through the square.  She was afraid Mairi might have arrived before he left.  And, indeed, he had not gone above a few minutes when a four-wheeler drove up, and an elderly man got out and waited for the timid-faced girl inside to alight.  With a rush like that of a startled deer, Sheila was down the stairs, along the hall and on the pavement; and it was, “Oh, Mairi! and have you come at last?  And are you very well?  And how are all the people in Borva?  And Mr. M’Alpine, how are you? and will you come into the house?”