“Mrs. Lavender’s father is an old friend of mine,” said Ingram, loud enough for all to hear; “and, hospitable as all Highlanders are, I have never met his equal in that way, and I have tried his patience a good many times. What do you think, Mrs. Lorraine, of a man who would give up his best gun to you, even though you couldn’t shoot a bit, and he particularly proud of his shooting? And so if you lived with him for a month or six months--each day the best of everything for you, the second best for your friend, the worst for himself. Wasn’t it so, Lavender?” It was a direct challenge sent across the table, and Sheila’s heart beat quick lest her husband should say something ungracious. “Yes, certainly,” said Lavender with a readiness that pleased Sheila. “I, at least, have no right to complain of his hospitality.” “Your papa is a very handsome man,” said Mrs. Lorraine to Sheila, bringing the conversation back to their own end of the table. “I have seen few finer heads than that drawing you have. Mr. Lavender did that, did he not? Why has he never done one of you?” “He is too busy, I think, just now,” Sheila said, perhaps not knowing that from Mrs. Lorraine’s waist-belt at that moment depended a fan which might have given evidence as to the extreme scarcity of time under which Lavender was supposed to labor. “He has a splendid head,” said Ingram. “Did you know that he is called the King of Borva up there?” “I have heard of him being called the King of Thule,” said Mrs. Lorraine, turning with a smile to Sheila, “and of his daughter being styled a princess. Do you know the ballad of the King of Thule, in _Faust_, Mrs. Lavender?” “In the opera?--yes,” said Sheila. “Will you sing it for us after dinner?” “If you like.” The promise was fulfilled, in a fashion. The notion that Mr. Ingram was about to go away up to Lewis, to the people who knew her and to her father’s house, with no possible answer to the questions which would certainly be showered upon him as to why she had not come also, troubled Sheila deeply. The ladies went into the drawing-room, and Mrs. Lorraine got out the song. Sheila sat down to the piano, thinking far more of that small stone house at Borva than of the King of Thule’s castle overlooking the sea; and yet somehow the first lines of the song, though she knew them well enough, sent a pang to her heart as she glanced at them. She touched the first notes of the accompaniment, and she looked at the words again: “Over the sea, in Thule of old, Reigned a king who was true-hearted, Who, in remembrance of one departed--”