And so, in early youth, the boy and girl had grown fond of each other--far fonder than either of them at first suspected. 'By the way,' said Mary, suddenly, and pausing in the act of snipping off a decayed rose with her garden scissors, 'the Dunkeld family are back at Craigmhor.' 'With visitors, of course?' 'As usual--gentlemen to shoot when the season opens in a week or two; and one, a Captain Colville--a very handsome man--is, I hear, the intended of that haughty girl, Blanche Galloway.' 'Well, I am not ill-natured,' said Ellinor, with her pretty head on one side, as she reproduced Robert Wodrow's lily in flake-white; 'but the man who marries Blanche won't have his sorrows to seek. However, we shall not call, unless they do so first, of course; so these people are nothing to us.' 'Nay,' said Mary; 'with visitors at Craigmhor, the housekeeper must necessarily require more eggs, fowls, flowers, and I know not what.' 'Sending these things to market at Perth or Forteviot is all very well, but I do dislike orders from the great folks at the manor house.' 'So do I, but needs must, you know, Ellinor.' 'What would papa have thought?' 'Had he thought more at times we had not been reduced to such shifts--not that I upbraid him, poor old man.' 'I detest catering for these great folks, who ignore our existence, save by a bow--more often a stare--at church,' persisted Ellinor. 'I care not--together we are independent, and happy here as the day is long: are not you so, Ellinor?' 'Yes; but how if one of us were to get married? Such things happen.' 'Don't speculate on that, though I think Robert Wodrow does,' said Mary, with something between a laugh and a sigh, as she took her way to the hen-court to see after her fowls. CHAPTER II. MARY'S ADVENTURE. On the following day, after seeing old Elspat duly installed in one of the cosiest rooms of the old portion of the mansion as a kind of housekeeper, Mary Wellwood put on her garden-hat, brought forth her fishing-tackle, tied a pretty basket round her waist, and, taking her rod, a dainty little one--the gift of Ellinor's admirer, Robert Wodrow--set forth, accompanied by Jack, to get a trout or two from the May, for Mary was an expert angler, giving, ere she departed, a last look at her favourite hen, with a callow brood of primrose-coloured chickens, over which she clucked noisily in the sunshine amid a wisp of straw, while eyeing Jack the terrier with keen alarm and antagonism. Mary left Ellinor again at her easel, and smiled when she saw that the latter had given some finishing touches to her costume, and had stuck a sprig in her lace collarette, in expectation of a visit from Robert Wodrow and his mother. She knew well of the loving friendship and incipient regard that had long existed between Rob and Ellinor; and that as friends of years' standing each had begun--she hoped--to feel that in all the world the other was the dearest, and a union for life would of course follow.