"Do you think Purdie did tell him?" young Donald Ross asked coldly. "If he has not!" said Mary ... "But I am almost sure he did—I spoke to Macdonald myself almost immediately afterwards. And—and I wished to tell you, Mr. Ross," she continued (as if she were rather pleading for favour, or at least expecting approval), "that I have been down to the stranger fishermen at Ru-Minard, and I think it is all settled, and that they are going away peaceably. I am paying them for the lobster-traps that were burned—and perhaps a little more; and they understand that the Vagrant Act can be brought to bear on any others who may think of coming." "Oh, they are going away?" said he. "Yes." "Mr. Purdie will be sorry for that." "Why?" "He could have had them removed, if he had wanted; but so long as they were an annoyance and vexation to the people here, he allowed them to remain—naturally." These accents of contemptuous scorn: she was sorry to hear them somehow; and yet perhaps they were justified—she did not know. "Good-bye," said she, at the hall door, and she held out her hand. "I am so much obliged to you." And then of course he did shake hands with her in bidding her farewell—and raised his cap—and was gone. Mary returned to the dining-room. "Well, Mamie," said Käthchen, with a demure smile, "that is about the most extraordinary interview I ever heard of. A most handsome young gentleman calls upon a young lady—his first visit—and there is nothing talked of on either side but sheriff officers and summonses, rent, compensation, drains, crofts, grazing, and Acts of Parliament. Of course he was quite as bad as you; but all the same, you might at least have asked the poor man to stay to lunch." "Oh, Käthchen!" Mary exclaimed, starting to her feet, her face on fire. "Shall I send Barbara after him? I never thought of it! How frightfully rude of me—and he has come all the way over from Heimra to tell me about this eviction. What shall I do? Shall I send after him?" "I don’t think you can," said Käthchen; "it would make the little oversight all the more marked. You’d better ask him the next time you see him—if you have forgotten certain warnings." "What warnings?" "Why, about his general character and his occupations," said Kate Glendinning, regarding her friend. Mary was silent for a moment or two; then she said— "We need not believe the worst of any one; and when you think of that old woman coming all the way from Canada to see him, that of itself is a testimonial to character that not many could bring forward—" "But you must remember," said Käthchen, "the young master was a little boy of ten when Mrs. Armour left; and little boys of ten haven’t had time to develop into dangerous criminals."