‘But Mrs Lawless is very, _very_ lovely—there cannot be two opinions on that subject,’ cried generous-hearted Mrs Dunstan. ‘For my own part I never saw a more beautiful face than hers, and my husband says just the same thing.’ ‘Eh! I nae doot it! The cairnal’s heed is tairned like all the rest o’ them. But he cannot ca’ it reet that men should rin after a leddy that has a lawfu’ meeried husband o’ her ain.’ ‘But you have such strange notions, Miss MacQuirk. If a gentleman shows a lady the least attention you call it “running after her.” We are like one family shut up in this little station by ourselves. If we are not to be on friendly terms with each other, we are indeed to be pitied.’ ‘Friendly tairms,’ exclaimed Miss Margie. ‘Do you call it “friendly tairms” to be walking in the dairk with anither mon’s wife? An’ that’s jeest what my gude brother saw yester e’en as he was comin’ hame fra’ mess.’ ‘What man! whose wife?’ asked Ethel Dunstan, for once interested in Miss MacQuirk’s scandal. ‘Aye! I dinna ken the mon, but the leddy was Mrs Lawless hersel’. And her husband was at the mess the while, for Andrew left him at the table, and he was comin’ home in the dark and he saw Mrs Lawless in her gairden at the dead o’ neet walkin’ with a strange mon—a tall mon, and stout, and not unlike the cairnal, Andrew says.’ ‘What nonsense; Charlie was back from mess by eleven o’clock,’ said Mrs Dunstan, with an air of annoyance. ‘When you repeat such stories, Miss MacQuirk, be good enough to keep my husband’s name out of them, or you may get into trouble.’ ‘Ah, well, Mrs Dunstan, I only mentioned that it was like the cairnal. Doubtless he was at mess or at home the while. It was half-past ten when Andrew retairned. But it is hairdly reet that Mrs Lawless should be walking in her gairden at that hour o’ neet and with anither mon than her husband. I doot but one should infairm Mr Lawless of the caircumstance.’ ‘Well, I advise you not to be the one,’ replied Ethel Dunstan, tartly. ‘Jack Lawless is considered a fire-eater amongst men, and I don’t think he would spare the woman even who tried to take away his wife’s character.’ ‘Eh, Mrs Doonstan, who talks o’ takin’ awa’ her character? I doot it’s but little she’s got, puir thing, and it ’twould be a sin to rob her o’ it. But it’s a terrible thing to see how gude luiks air rated abuve guid deeds, and enough to mak’ all honest men thank the Laird who has presairved them fra the wiles o’ the enemy. And now I’ll wish you the gude mairnin, Mrs Doonstan, for I have several other calls to pay before tiffin.’ And so the old scandal-monger had left the colonel’s wife in the condition in which we found her. Of course if there had been no more truth in it than in the generality of Miss MacQuirk’s stories Ethel Dunstan would have laughed at and forgotten it. But there is just sufficient probability of its being a fact to give a colouring to the matter.