“You won’t give in,” said Matty; “the Scotch never will, I know; you are all so dreadfully argumentative and quarrelsome. But you are beaten, though you won’t acknowledge it; you know you are. I like talking to you,” continued the little witch, dropping her voice a little, “because--hush! I thought I heard some one calling me from the house.” “Because why?” said Colin. They were a good way off, behind one of those great holly trees; but young Frankland, with his quickened ears, discerned in an instant the softness, the tender admiration, the music of the tutor’s voice. “By Jove!” said the heir to himself; and then he shouted out, “Matty, look here! come here!” in tones as different from those of Colin as discord is from harmony. It did not occur to him that Miss Matty’s ear, being perfectly cool and unexcited, was quite able to discriminate between the two voices which thus claimed her regard. “What do you want?” said Matty. “Don’t stand there in the fog like a ghost; if you have anything to say, come here. I am taking my constitutional; one’s first duty is the care of one’s health,” said the wicked little creature, with her ring of laughter; and she turned back again under his very eyes along the terrace without looking at him again. As for Harry Frankland, the words which escaped from his excited lips were not adapted for publication. If he had been a little less angry he would have joined them, and so made an end of the tutor; but, being furious, and not understanding anything about it, he burst for a moment into profane language, and then went off to the stables, where all the people had a bad time of it until the dressing-bell rang. “What a savage he is,” said Matty, confidentially. “That is the bore of cousins; they can’t bear to see one happy, and yet they won’t take the trouble of making themselves agreeable. How nice it used to be down at Kilchurn _that_ summer--you remember? And what quantities of poetry you used to write. I suppose Wodensbourne is not favourable to poetry? You have never shown me anything since you came here.” “Poetry is only for one’s youth,” said Colin; “that is, if you dignify my verses with the name--for one’s extreme youth, when one believes in everything that is impossible; and for Kilchurn, and the Lady’s Glen, and the Holy Loch,” said the youth, after a pause, with a fervour which disconcerted Matty. “_That_ summer was not summer, but a bit of paradise--and life is real at Wodensbourne.”