Macpherson assured her that she need not be alarmed, and promised at all events to do his best to take care of Tom; and then, instead of Robert, when he was expected, Lily came in equipped for a walk, and Mrs. Echalaz said, “Ah, yes, my daughter, Mr. Macpherson. I’m sorry to say Robert is not well. He reads too hard, I am sure; he is not fit to go, and so I am sending Lily instead. I can’t let Tom”—she changed the expression of the thought in her heart—“Tom would be quite too much for you alone,” she said. “I always send one of them with him—not,” she added, betraying herself still more to Macpherson’s quick perceptions, “not that I doubt your care; I am sure you will not let any harm befall him.” But her last words, far from being expressive of any such assurance, sounded like a reiterated appeal to him to guard her darling. Macpherson said he would be very careful, and at length the three were allowed to depart. Tom lost no time in handing over all his encumbrances to his sister, and before they had walked through the wood at the back of the villa he was away after butterflies, leaving Lily and Macpherson to carry the rods and tackle, the fishing-basket, and the lunch. It was a great relief to the young minister to find that the English girl was neither shy nor self-conscious, but ready to talk with the same pleasant frankness and cordiality that had so struck him in the elder brother. She watched Tom’s retreating figure with an indulgent smile for a minute, and then turned to her companion. “May I ask you a great many questions, Mr. Macpherson?” she said, with natural directness. “Surely,” answered he, readily; “and I hope I may be able to answer some of them.” “I want to tell Robert,” she explained, with a smile. “After we had been to your little kirk on Sunday we both wanted very much to know you. He is to take holy orders, and he and I think a great deal about the work to which he will be called. Your life, now, must be something utterly different from anything we have ever seen or imagined before.” “Is it?” he said. “Only because such primitive conditions exist perhaps no longer in England. I suppose a time is drawing nearer that will sweep away what lingers here.” “Well, but—” Lily hesitated an instant. “May I be quite frank?” she put in, deprecatingly. “How is it that _you_ are in such a place?” He did not know the drift of this question, and looked puzzled. “Why should I not be?” he asked, diffidently. The girl glanced expressively to north and south, down and up the lonely valley. “One might say, speaking roughly,” she said, “that there are no people here,” Macpherson too looked up the valley, and saw, far off, the hut where that poor shepherd had died, and thoughts of that Sunday morning brought the light into his face. “That _would_ be ’speaking roughly,’” he said, with a gentleness that made her feel ashamed at first, and then anxious to justify herself. “But is your congregation always so small?” she asked.