"Macleod," said the major, subsiding into the big armchair very carefully so as not to crease his shining shirt-front, "I must give you another piece of advice. It is serious. I have heard again and again that when a man thinks only of one thing--when he keeps brooding over it day and night--he is bound to become mad. They call it monomania. You are becoming a monomaniac." "Yes, I think I am," Macleod said, laughing; "but it is a very pleasant sort of monomania, and I am not anxious to become sane. But you really must not be hard on me, Stuart. You know that this is rather an important thing that has happened to me; and it wants a good deal of thinking over." "Bah!" the major cried, "why take it so much _au grand serieux?_ A girl likes you; says she'll marry you; probably, if she continues in the same mind, she will. Consider your self a lucky dog; and don't break your heart if an accident occurs. Hope for the best--that you and she mayn't quarrel, and that she mayn't prove a sigher. Now what do you think of this house? I consider it an uncommon good dodge to put each person's name outside his bedroom door; there can't be any confounded mistakes--and women squealing--if you come up late at night. Why, Macleod, you don't mean that this affair has destroyed all your interest in the shooting? Man, I have been down to the gun-room with your friend Beauregard; have seen the head-keeper; got a gun that suits me firstrate--a trifle long in the stock, perhaps, but no matter. You won't tip any more than the head-keeper, eh? And the fellow who carries your cartridge-bag? I do think it uncommonly civil of a man not only to ask you to go shooting, but to find you in guns and cartridges; don't you?" The major chatted on with great cheerfulness. He clearly considered that he had got into excellent quarters. At dinner he told some of his most famous Indian stories to Lady Beauregard, near whom he was sitting; and at night, in the improvised smoking-room, he was great on deer-stalking. It was not necessary for Macleod, or anybody else, to talk. The major was in full flow, though he stoutly refused to touch the spirits on the table. He wanted a clear head and a steady hand for the morning. Alas! alas! The next morning presented a woful spectacle. Gray skies; heavy and rapidly drifting clouds; pouring rain; runnels of clear water by the side of every gravel-path; a rook or two battling with the squally south-wester high over the wide and desolate park: the wild-ducks at the margin of the ruffled lake flapping their wings as if the wet was too much even for them; nearer at hand the firs and evergreens all dripping. After breakfast the male guests wandered disconsolately into the cold billiard-room, and began knocking the balls about. All the loquacious cheerfulness of the major had fled. He looked out on the wet park and the sombre woods, and sighed.