Altogether, it was a pleasant evening they had, but when Ingram had left, Mr. Mackenzie said to his daughter, "Now, look at this, Sheila. When Mr. Ingram goes away from London, you hef no friend at all then in the place, and you are quite alone. Why will you not come to the Lewis, Sheila? It is no one there will know anything of what has happened here; and Mairi she is a good girl, and she will hold her tongue." "They will ask me why I come back without my husband," Sheila said, looking down. "Oh, you will leave that all to me," said her father, who knew he had surely sufficient skill to thwart the curiosity of a few simple creatures in Borva. "There is many a girl hass to go home for a time while her husband he is away on his business; and there will no one hef the right to ask you any more than I will tell them; and I will tell them what they should know--oh yes, I will tell them ferry well--and you will hef no trouble about it. And, Sheila, you are a good lass, and you know that I hef many things to attend to that is not easy to write about--" "I do know that, papa," the girl said, "and many a time have I wished you would go back to the Lewis." "And leave you here by yourself? Why, you are talking foolishly, Sheila. But now, Sheila, you will see how you could go back with me; and it would be a ferry different thing for you running about in the fresh air than shut up in a room in the middle of a town. And you are not looking ferry well, my lass, and Scarlett she will hef to take the charge of you." "I will go to the Lewis with you, papa, when you please," she said, and he was glad and proud to hear her decision; but there was no happy light of anticipation in her eyes, such as ought to have been awakened by this projected journey to the far island which she had known as her home. And so it was that one rough and blustering afternoon the Clansman steamed into Stornoway harbor, and Sheila, casting timid and furtive glances toward the quay, saw Duncan standing there, with the wagonette some little distance back under charge of a boy. Duncan was a proud man that day. He was the first to shove the gangway on to the vessel, and he was the first to get on board; and in another minute Sheila found the tall, keen-eyed, brown-faced keeper before her, and he was talking in a rapid and eager fashion, throwing in an occasional scrap of Gaelic in the mere hurry of his words. "Oh yes, Miss Sheila, Scarlett she is ferry well whatever, but there is nothing will make her so well as your coming back to sa Lewis; and we wass saying yesterday that it looked as if it wass more as three or four years, or six years, since you went away from sa Lewis, but now it iss no time at all, for you are just the same Miss Sheila as we knew before; and there is not one in all Borva but will think it iss a good day this day that you will come back."