Kirsteen cast a glance round and checked further question, for her father consuming a delicate Loch Fyne herring, with his attention concentrated on his plate, and Mary seated primly smiling over her scone, were not at all in sympathy with the tale she had been told last night. Miss Eelen, with the tray before her on which stood the teapot and teacups, peering into each to count the lumps of sugar she had placed there, did not appear much more congenial, though there were moments when the old lady showed a romantic side. No trace of the turban and feathers of last night was on her venerable head. She wore a muslin mutch, fine but not much different from those of the old wives in the cottages, with a broad black ribbon round it tied in a large bow on the top of her head; and her shoulders were enveloped in a warm tartan shawl pinned at the neck with a silver brooch. The fringes of the shawl had a way of getting entangled in the tray, and swept the teaspoons to the ground when she made an incautious movement; but nothing would induce Miss Eelen to resign the tea-making into younger hands. “Did I ever hear?” she said. “I would like to know, Kirsteen Douglas, what it is I havena heard in my long pilgrimage of nigh upon seventy years. But there’s a time for everything. If ye ask me at another moment I’ll tell ye the whole story. Is it you, Drumcarro, that takes no sugar in your tea? No doubt you’ve had plenty in your time in yon dreadful West Indies where you were so long.” “What’s dreadful about them?” said Drumcarro. “It’s ignorance that makes ye say so. Ye would think ye were in paradise if ye were there.” “Oh, never with all those meeserable slaves!” “You’re just a set of idiots with your prejudices,” said the laird, who had finished his herrings and pushed away his plate. “Slaves, quo’ she! There’s few of them would change places, I can tell ye, with your crofters and such like that ye call free men.” “Ye were looking for something, father,” said Mary. “I’m looking for that mutton bone,” said her father. “Fish is a fine thing; but there’s nothing like a bit of butcher’s meat to begin the day upon.”