"Ey, puir, puir leddy," Jean, keeping finger and thumb on the dead eyelids, turned toward Daisy with two tear-balls bowling down the rugged field of her face; "she's gone, she's gone. Ey, gone off all her lone--died as she lived, bairnie--while we're crackin' awa careless-like down in yon kitchen. Stane deid, an' nigh stark against the layin'-oot." CHAPTER XVII. A RAINCLOUD. "When a chap has a bit of a brain," said a voice, speaking from behind a crinkled newspaper that was doing temporary service as a fan, "and a habit of seeing rather far into things, if you know what I mean--it's _such_ a jolly nuisance that he can't get it before the public without writing it down. Isn't it, rather, don't you think, Lady Ware?" "I suppose it rather must be, kind of," said Daisy, who, in a smart white skirt and blouse, and canvas shoes, occupied the other end of the tennis-court bench on the Wares' lawn, "but you should worry about that, Arthur. The public has enough books to read anyway." "Not of the kind I should write, they haven't," declared Lord Arthur Milcourt, raising toward a green bough above them the ingenuous face of twenty-one; "I say, can you type a bit?" "What?" Daisy demanded, wrinkling her brows at the speaker in a comical way; "oh, you mean, run a typewriter. No." "Weren't you employed in an office or something, when old Will discovered--er--met you? And didn't you run--that is, operate--a typing machine there?" "I was a housemaid before I was married," replied Daisy, dimpling, "and I didn't know a typewriter from a bale of hay." "Ah!" commented Lord Arthur, regarding her. "I say, old Will's a queer sort, don't you think?" he added, with apparent irrelevance, after a moment. Daisy rose to her feet and tossed her tennis racquet down on the bench. "Not half so queer as some people I could name," she observed, pinning on her hat. "I'm going down town. Do you want to come, or will you stay here? There's a book up in the library about writers or painters or something. I came across it the other day when I was looking for something else. Full of pictures of homely-looking men, it is--some of them bald-headed, and others with hair down to the coat-collars." "I'll stay and glance over the book," said Lord Arthur, stretching out luxuriously on the bench; "I say, get it and bring it out, will you, there's a good soul. I shouldn't wonder if it's jolly interesting. Baldheaded men! You _are_ a rum one." "Get it yourself, you lazy, long-legged lump," said Daisy, promptly; "who was your servant this time last year?" "Ah--sorry," murmured Lord Arthur (the words were apologetic, but the tone was supercilious); "I'll go and fetch it myself." He marched off to the house; and as he marched, he muttered: "'Long-legged lump!' Jowve, but it's _wickid_--poor old Will!"