Behind her back Margot beamed and grimaced triumphantly to her confederate. Victory was in the air! Mrs McNab could not refuse to grant a night's shelter to a tired and chilly traveller, and by to- morrow--Margot smiled to herself, recalling the contortion of the dour Scotch face,--by to-morrow she was complacently satisfied that Mrs McNab would no longer wish to be rid of her unexpected guest! CHAPTER NINE. THE BROTHERS ELGOOD. Inside the inn a mingling of odours greeted the nostrils. Furniture polish, soft soap, various whiffs from the bar, which by good fortune opened into the stable-yard, and was distinct from the house itself; a sweet, heavy odour of milk from the dairy; a smell of musk from the plants ranged along the window-sills. In the dining-room the tablecloth was laid, with a large home-cured ham in the place of honour. The floor was covered with oilcloth; the furniture was covered with horsehair. On the mantelpiece stood two large specimens of granite, and a last year's almanac. Red rep curtains were draped across the window, so as to conceal all the view except a glimpse of the road. The walls were hung with a fearsome paper, in which bouquets of deep blue flowers were grouped on a background of lozenges of an orange hue. Over the mantelpiece hung a coloured print of Queen Victoria; over the sideboard a print entitled "Deerstalking," representing two Highlanders in plaids and bonnets standing over the prostrate form of a "monarch of the waste." In the corner by the window were massed together quite an imposing collection of "burial cards," memorialising McNab connections dead and gone, all framed to match in black bands with silver beadings. Anything less homelike and inviting can hardly be imagined to welcome tired travellers at the end of a long and chilly journey. Margot shivered as she crossed the portals, and rubbed her hands together in disconsolate fashion, even her cheery optimism failing at the sight. "It's so--_slippery_!" was the mental comment. "What an appalling room to sit in! What must it be like in bad weather! And no fire! We'd die of cold if we sat here all the evening. If the worst comes to the worst, I'll hug my hot bottle. What a mercy I remembered to bring it!" Mrs McNab was speaking in hard, aloof accents, after the manner of one who, having been interrupted in her work by unwelcome intruders, is still determined to perform her duty toward them, as a matter of distasteful necessity. Shades of the obsequious landladies of the South! The tired guests quailed before the severity of this Northern welcome. "If it's tea you're wanting, the kettle's on the hob. It will be waiting for you before ye're ready for it. Ye'll be wanting a wash, I'm thinking."