“Miss White and I,” said Mrs. Ross to him—­and at this moment the young lady turned to them—­“were talking before you came in of the beautiful country you must know so well, and of its romantic stories and associations with Prince Charlie.  Gertrude, let me introduce Sir Keith Macleod to you.  I told Miss White you might come to us to-day; and she was saying what a pity it was that Flora MacDonald was not a Macleod.”

“That was very kind” said he, frankly, turning to this tall, pale girl, with the rippling hair of golden brown and the heavy-lidded and downcast eyes.  And then he laughed.  “We would not like to steal the honor from a woman, even though she was a Macdonald, and you know the Macdonalds and the Macleods were not very friendly in the old time.  But we can claim something too about the escape of Prince Charlie, Mrs. Ross.  After Flora Macdonald had got him safe from Harris to Skye, she handed him over to the sons of Macleod of Raasay, and it was owing to them that he got to the mainland.  You will find many people up there to this day who believe that if Macleod of Macleod had gone out in ’45, Prince Charlie would never have had to flee at all.  But I think the Macleods had done enough for the Stuarts; and it was but little thanks they ever got in return, so far as I could ever hear.  Do you know, Mrs. Ross, my mother wears mourning every 3d of September, and will eat nothing from morning till night.  It is the anniversary of the battle of Worcester; and then the Macleods were so smashed up that for a long time the other clans relieved them from military service.”

“You are not much of a Jacobite, Sir Keith,” said Mrs. Ross, smiling.

“Only when I hear a Jacobite song sung,” said he.  “Then who can fail to be a Jacobite?”

He had become quite friendly with this amiable lady.  If he had been afraid that his voice, in these delicate southern ears, must sound like the first guttral drone of Donald’s Pipes at Castle Dare, he had speedily lost that fear.  The manly, sun-browned face and clear-glancing eyes were full of animation; he was oppressed no longer by the solemnity of the servants; so long as he talked to her he was quite confident; he had made friends with this friendly woman.  But he had not as yet dared to address the pale girl who sat on his right, and who seemed so fragile and beautiful and distant in manner.

“After all,” said he to Mrs. Ross, “there were no more Highlanders killed in the cause of the Stuarts than used to be killed every year or two merely out of the quarrels of the clans among themselves.  All about where I live there is scarcely a rock, or a loch, or an island that has not its story.  And I think,” added he, with a becoming modesty, “that the Macleods were by far the most treacherous and savage and bloodthirsty of the whole lot of them.”

And now the fair stranger beside him addressed him for the first time; and as she did so, she turned her eyes towards him—­clear, large eyes that rather startled one when the heavy lids were lifted, so full of expression were they.