Certainly, that was a strange sight for a decorous London square—­the mistress of a house, a young girl with bare head, coming out on the pavement to shake hands in a frantic fashion with a young maid-servant and an elderly man whose clothes had been pretty well tanned by sunlight and sea-water!  And Sheila would herself help to carry Mairi’s luggage in.  And she would take no denial from Mr. M’Alpine, whose luggage was also carried in.  And she would herself pay the cabman, as strangers did not know about these things, Sheila’s knowledge being exhibited by her hastily giving the man five shillings for driving from Euston Station.  And there was breakfast waiting for them both as soon as Mairi could get her face washed; and would Mr. M’Alpine have a glass of whisky after the night’s traveling?—­and it was very good whisky whatever, as it had come all the way from Stornoway.  Mr. M’Alpine was nothing loath.

“And wass you pretty well, Miss Sheila?” said Mairi, looking timidly and hastily up, and forgetting altogether that Sheila had another name now.  “It will be a great thing for me to go back to sa Lewis, and tell them I wass seeing you, and you wass looking so well.  And I will be thinking I wass neffer coming to any one I knew any more; and it is a great fright I hef had since we came away from sa Lewis; and I wass thinking we would neffer find you among all sa people and so far away across sa sea and sa land.  Eh—!” The girl stopped in astonishment.  Her eyes had wandered up to a portrait on the walls; and here, in this very room, after she had traveled over all this great distance, apparently leaving behind her everything but the memory of her home, was Mr. Mackenzie himself, looking at her from under his shaggy eyebrows.

“You must have seen that picture in Borva, Mairi,” Sheila said.  “Now come with me, like a good girl, and get yourself ready for breakfast.  Do you know, Mairi, it does my heart good to hear you talk again?  I don’t think I shall be able to let you go back to the Lewis.”

“But you hef changed ferry much in your way of speaking, Miss—­Mrs. Lavender,” said Mairi with an effort.  “You will speak just like sa English now.”

“The English don’t say so,” replied Sheila with a smile, leading the way up stairs.

Mr. M’Alpine had his business to attend to, but, being a sensible man, he took advantage of the profuse breakfast placed before him.  Mairi was a little too frightened and nervous and happy to eat much, but Mr. M’Alpine was an old traveler, not to be put out by the mere meeting of two girls.  He listened in a grave and complacent manner to the rapid questions and answers of Mairi and her hostess, but he himself was too busy to join in the conversation much.  At the end of breakfast he accepted, after a little pressing, half a glass of whisky; and then, much comforted and in a thoroughly good-humor with himself and the world, got his luggage out again and went on his way toward a certain inn in High Holborn.