The shy blue eyes met mine for an instant before they fluttered groundward. I could scarce make out the low sweet music of her voice. "Oh, Kenneth, not now! You forget--my brother Malcolm----" "I forget everything but this, that I love you." In her cheeks was being fought the war of the roses, with Lancaster victorious. The long-lashed eyes came up to meet mine bravely, love lucent in them. Our glances married; in those clear Highland lochs of hers I was sunk fathoms deep. "Truly, Kenneth?" "From the head to the heel of you, Aileen, lass. For you I would die, and that is all there is about it," I cried, wildly. "Well then, take me, Kenneth! I am all yours. Of telling love there will be many ways in the Gaelic, and I am thinking them all at once." And this is the plain story of how the great happiness came into Kenneth Montagu's life, and how, though all unworthy, he won for his own the daughter of Raasay. CHAPTER XIV THE AFTERMATH At Edinburgh we received check one. Aileen's aunt had left for the Highlands the week before in a fine rage because the Duke of Cumberland, who had foisted himself upon her unwilling hospitality, had eaten her out of house and home, then departing had borne away with him her cherished household _penates_ to the value of some hundred pounds. Years later Major Wolfe told me with twinkling eyes the story of how the fiery little lady came to him with her tale of woe. If she did not go straight to the dour Duke it was because he was already out of the city and beyond her reach. Into Wolfe's quarters she bounced, rage and suspicion speaking eloquent in her manner. "Hech, sir! Where have ye that Dutch Prince of yours?" she demanded of Wolfe, her keen eyes ranging over him. "'Pon honour, madam, I have not him secreted on my person," returned the Major, gravely turning inside out his pockets for her. The spirited old lady glowered at him. "It's ill setting ye to be sae humoursome," she told him frankly. "It wad be better telling ye to answer ceevilly a ceevil question, my birkie." "If I can be of any service, madam----" "Humph, service! And that's just it, my mannie. The ill-faured tykes hae rampaigned through the house and taen awa' my bonnie silver tea service that I hae scoured every Monday morning for thirty-seven years come Michelmas, forby the fine Holland linen that my father, guid carefu' man, brought frae the continent his nainsel." "I am sorry----" "Sorry! Hear till him," she snorted. "Muckle guid your sorrow will do me unless----" her voice fell to a wheedling cajolery--"you just be a guid laddie and get me back my linen and the silver." "The Duke has a partiality for fine bed linen, and quaint silver devices are almost a mania with him. Perhaps some of your other possessions"-- "His Dutch officers ate me out of house and home. They took awa' eight sacks of the best lump sugar." "The army is in need of sugar. I fear it is not recoverable."