"But you know, papa, when you are knocked about from one boat to another, and expecting to be ill one minute and drowned the next, you don't have your temper improved, do you? And then perhaps you have been expecting a little too much romance?--and you find your Highland chieftain handing down loaves, with all the people in the steamer staring at him. But I really mean to make it up to him, papa, if I could only get settled down for a day or two and get into my own ways. Oh dear me!--this sun--it is too awfully dreadful! When I appear before Mr. Lemuel again, I shall be a mulatto!" And as they walked along the burning sands, with the waves monotonously breaking, the white-sailed yacht came nearer and more near; and, indeed, the old _Umpire_, broad-beamed and heavy as she was, looked quite stately and swanlike as she came over the blue water. And they saw the gig lowered; and the four oars keeping rhythmical time; and presently they could make out the browned and glad face of Macleod. "Why did you take so much trouble?" said she to him--and she took his hand in a very kind way as he stepped on shore. "We could very well have gone back in the boat." "Oh, but I want to take you round by Loch Tua," said he, looking with great gratitude into those friendly eyes. "And it was no trouble at all. And will you step into the gig now?" He took her hand and guided her along the rocks until she reached the boat; and he assisted her father too. Then they pushed off, and it was with a good swing the men sent the boat through the lapping waves. And here was Hamish standing by the gangway to receive them; and he was gravely respectful to the stranger lady, as he assisted her to get up the small wooden steps; but there was no light of welcome in the keen gray eyes. He quickly turned away from her to give his orders; for Hamish was on this occasion skipper, and had donned a smart suit of blue with brass buttons. Perhaps he would have been prouder of his buttons, and of himself, and of the yacht he had sailed for so many years, if it had been any other than Gertrude White who had now stepped on board.