Next morning Sheila was busy with her preparations for departure, when she heard a hansom drive up. She looked out and saw Mr. Ingram step out; and before he had time to cross the pavement she had run around and opened the door, and stood at the top of the steps to receive him. How often had her husband cautioned her not to forget herself in this monstrous fashion! “Do you think I had run away? Have you come to see me?” she said, with a bright, roseate gladness on her face, which reminded him of many a pleasant morning in Borva. “I did not think you had run away, for, you see, I have brought you some flowers;” but there was a sort of blush in the sallow face, and perhaps the girl had some quick fancy or suspicion that he had brought this bouquet to prove that he knew everything was right, and that he expected to see her. It was only a part of his universal kindness and thoughtfulness, she considered. “Frank is up stairs,” she said, “getting ready some things to go to Brighton. Will you come into the breakfast-room? Have you had breakfast?” “Oh, you were going to Brighton?” “Yes,” she said, and somehow something moved her to add quickly, “but not for long, you know. Only a few days. It is many a time you will have told me of Brighton long ago in the Lewis, but I cannot understand a large town being beside the sea, and it will be a great surprise to me, I am sure of that.” “Ay, Sheila,” he said, falling into the old habit quite naturally, “you will find it different from Borvapost. You will have no scampering about the rock, with your head bare and your hair flying about. You will have to dress more correctly there than here even; and, by the way, you must be busy getting ready; so I will go.” “Oh, no,” she said, with a quick look of disappointment, “you will not go yet. If I had known you were coming--but it was very late when we got home this morning: two o’clock it was.” “Another ball?” “Yes,” said the girl, but not very joyfully. “Why, Sheila,” he said, with a grave smile on his face, “you are becoming quite a woman of fashion now. And you know I can’t keep up an acquaintance with a fine lady, who goes to all these grand places, and knows all sorts of swell people; so you’ll have to cut me, Sheila.” “I hope I shall be dead before that time ever comes,” said the girl, with a sudden flash of indignation in her eyes. Then she softened: “But it is not kind for you to laugh at me.” “Of course I did not laugh at you,” he said, taking both her hands in his, “although I used to sometimes when you were a little girl and talked very wild English. Don’t you remember how vexed you used to be, and how pleased you were when your papa turned the laugh against me by getting me to say that awful Gaelic sentence about ‘A young calf ate a raw egg!’” “Can you say it now?” said Sheila, with her face getting bright and pleased again. “Try it after me. Now listen.”