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?"

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