"Won't you go to the Highlands this autumn?" Mrs. Lorraine asked in a
friendly way.

"No," said Sheila in a measured voice as she looked her enemy fair in
the face: "I think we are going to the Tyrol."

If the child had only known what occurred to Mrs. Lorraine's mind
at this moment! Not a triumphant sense of Lavender's infatuation, as
Sheila probably fancied, but a very definite resolution that if Frank
Lavender went to the Tyrol, it was not with either her or her mother
he should go.

"Mrs. Lavender's father is an old friend of mine," said Ingram, loud
enough for all to hear; "and, hospitable as all Highlanders are, I
have never met his equal in that way, and I have tried his patience a
good many times. What do you think, Mrs. Lorraine, of a man who would
give up his best gun to you, even though you couldn't shoot a bit, and
he particularly proud of his shooting? And so if you lived with him
for a month or six months--each day the best of everything for you,
the second best for your friend, the worst for himself. Wasn't it so,
Lavender?"

It was a direct challenge sent across the table, and Sheila's heart
beat quick lest her husband should say something ungracious.

"Yes, certainly," said Lavender with a readiness that pleased Sheila.
"I, at least, have no right to complain of his hospitality."

"Your papa is a very handsome man," said Mrs. Lorraine to Sheila,
bringing the conversation back to their own end of the table. "I have