McTavish was kept waiting a long time while a servant took his letter of introduction to Miss MacNish, and brought back an answer from the castle.

Finally, midway of a winding and shrubby short cut, into which he turned as directed by the porter, he came suddenly upon her.

"Miss MacNish—?" he said.

"You're not Mr. McTavish!—" She seemed dumfounded, and glanced at a letter which she carried open in her hand. "My sister writes—"

"What does she write?" asked McTavish eagerly.

"No—no!" Miss MacNish exclaimed hastily, "the letter was to me." She tore it hastily into little pieces.

"Miss MacNish," said McTavish, somewhat hurt, "it is evident that I give diametrically opposed impressions to you and your sister. Either she has said something nice about me, and you, seeing me, are astonished that she should; or she has said something horrid about me—I do hope it's that way—and you are even more surprised. It must be one thing or the other. And before we shake hands I think it only proper for you to tell me which."

"Let bygones be bygones," said Miss MacNish, and she held out her hand.
McTavish took it, and smiled his enigmatic smile.

"It is your special wish, I have gathered," said Miss MacNish, "to meet The McTavish. Now she knows about your being in the neighborhood, knows that you are a distant cousin, but she hasn't expressed any wish to meet you—at least I haven't heard her. If she wishes to meet you, she will ask you to call upon her. If she doesn't wish to, she won't. Of course, if you came upon her suddenly—somewhere in the grounds, for instance—she'd have to listen to what you had to say, and to answer you, I suppose. But to-day—well I'd not try it to-day."

"Why not?" asked McTavish.

"Why," said Miss MacNish, "she caught cold in the car yesterday, and her poor nose is much too red for company."

"Why do you all try to make her out such a bad lot?"

"Is it being a bad lot to have a red nose?" exclaimed Miss MacNish.

"At twenty-two?" McTavish looked at her in surprise and horror. "I ask you," he said. "There was the porter at Brig O'Dread, and your sister—they gave her a pair of black eyes between them, and here you give her a red nose. When the truth is probably the reverse."

"I don't know the reverse of red," said Miss MacNish, "but that would give her white eyes."

"I am sure, Miss MacNish, that quibbling is not one of your prerogatives. It belongs exclusively to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. As for me—the less I see of The McTavish, the surer I am that she is rather beautiful, and very amusing, and good."

"Are these the matters on which you are so eager to meet her?" asked Miss MacNish. She stood with her back to a clump of dark blue larkspur taller than herself—a lovely picture, in her severe black housekeeper's dress that by contrast made her face and dark red hair all the more vivacious and flowery. Her eyes at the moment were just the color of the larkspur.

McTavish smiled his enigmatic smile. "They are," he said.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Miss MacNish.

"When I meet her—" McTavish began, and abruptly paused.

"What?" Miss MacNish asked with some eagerness.

"Oh, nothing; I'm so full of it that I almost betrayed my own confidence."

"I hope that you aren't implying that I might prove indiscreet."

"Oh, dear no!" said McTavish.

"It had a look of it, then," said Miss MacNish tartly.

"Oh," said McTavish, "if I've hurt your feelings—why, I'll go on with what I began, and take the consequences, shall I?"

"I think," said Miss MacNish primly, "that it would tend to restore confidence between us."

"When I meet her, then," said McTavish, "I shall first tell her that she is beautiful, and amusing, and good. And then," it came from him in a kind of eager, boyish outburst, "I shall ask her to marry me."

Miss MacNish gasped and stepped backward into the fine and deep soil that gave the larkspur its inches. The color left her cheeks and returned upon the instant tenfold. And it was many moments before she could find a word to speak. Then she said in an injured and astonished tone: "Why?"

"The Scotch Scot," said McTavish, "is shrewd, but cautious. The American Scot is shrewd, but daring. Caution, you'll admit, is a pitiful measure in an affair of the heart."

Miss MacNish was by this time somewhat recovered from her consternation. "Well," said she, "what then? When you have come upon The McTavish unawares somewhere in the shrubbery, and asked her to marry you, and she has boxed your ears for you—what then?"

"Then," said McTavish with a kind of anticipatory expression of pleasure, "I shall kiss her. Even if she hated it," he said ruefully, "she couldn't help but be surprised and flattered."

Miss MacNish took a step forward with a sudden hilarious brightening in her eyes. "Are you quizzing me," she said, "or are you outlining your honest and mad intentions? And if the latter, won't you tell me why? Why, in heaven's name, should you ask The McTavish to marry you—at first sight?"

"I can't explain it," said McTavish. "But even if I never have seen her—I love her."

"I have heard of love at first sight—" began Miss MacNish.

But he interrupted eagerly. "You haven't ever experienced it, have you?"

"Of course, I haven't," she exclaimed indignantly. "I've heard of it—often. But I have never heard of love without any sight at all."

"Love is blind," said McTavish.

"Now, who's quibbling?"

"Just because," he said, "you've never heard of a thing, away off here in your wild Highlands, is a mighty poor proof that it doesn't exist. I suppose you don't believe in predestination. I've always known," he said grandly, "that I should marry my cousin—even against her will and better judgment. You don't more than half believe me, do you?"

"Well, not more than half," Miss MacNish smiled.

"It's the truth," he said; "I will bet you ten pounds it's the truth."

Miss MacNish looked at him indignantly, and in the midst of the look she sighed. "I don't bet," said she.

McTavish lowered his glance until it rested upon his own highly polished brown boots.

"Why are you looking at your boots?" asked Miss MacNish.

"Because," he said simply, "considering that I am in love with my cousin, I don't think I ought to look at you any more. I'm afraid I got the habit by looking at your sister; but then, as she has a husband, it couldn't matter so much."

Miss MacNish, I'm afraid, mantled with pleasure. "My sister said something in her letter about your wishing to see the house of your ancestors. Miss McTavish is out now—would you like to look about a little?"

"Dearly," said McTavish.