“Brighton seems to surprise you very much,” said Mrs. Lorraine.

“Yes,” said Sheila, “I have been told all about it, but you will forget all that; and this is very different from the sea at home—­at my home.”

“Your home is in London now,” said the elder lady with a smile.

“Oh no!” said Sheila, most anxiously and earnestly.  “London, that is not our home at all.  We live there for a time—­that will be quite necessary—­but we shall go back to the Lewis some day soon—­not to stay altogether, but enough to make it as much our home as London.”

“How do you think Mr. Lavender will enjoy living in the Hebrides?” said Mrs. Lorraine with a look of innocent and friendly inquiry in her eyes.

“It was many a time that he has said he never liked any place so much,” said Sheila with something of a blush; and then she added with growing courage, “for you must not think he is always like what he is here.  Oh no!  When he is in the Highlands there is no day that is nearly long enough for what has to be done in it; and he is up very early, and away to the hills or the loch with a gun or a salmon-rod.  He can catch the salmon very well—­oh, very well for one that is not accustomed—­and he will shoot as well as any one that is in the island, except my papa.  It is a great deal to do there will be in the island, and plenty of amusement; and there is not much chance—­not any whatever—­of his being lonely or tired when we go to live in the Lewis.”

Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter were both amused and pleased by the earnest and rapid fashion in which Sheila talked.  They had generally considered her to be a trifle shy and silent, not knowing how afraid she was of using wrong idioms or pronunciations; but here was one subject on which her heart was set, and she had no more thought as to whether she said like-a-ness or likeness, or whether she said gyarden or garden.  Indeed, she forgot more than that.  She was somewhat excited by the presence of the sea and the well-remembered sound of the waves; and she was pleased to talk about her life in the North, and about her husband’s stay there, and how they should pass the time when she returned to Borva.  She neglected altogether Lavender’s injunctions that she should not talk about fishing or cooking or farming to his friends.  She incidentally revealed to Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter a great deal more about the household at Borva than he would have wished to be known.  For how could they understand about his wife having her own cousin to serve at table? and what would they think of a young lady who was proud of making her father’s shirts?  Whatever these two ladies may have thought, they were very obviously interested, and if they were amused, it was in a far from unfriendly fashion.  Mrs. Lorraine professed herself quite charmed with Sheila’s descriptions of her island-life, and wished she could go up to Lewis to see all these strange things.  But when she spoke of visiting the island when Sheila and her husband were staying there, Sheila was not nearly so ready to offer her a welcome as the daughter of a hospitable old Highlandman ought to have been.