Most of Jenny's acquaintances gladly seized the opportunity to call on her when her master was away from home. The Colonel had the reputation of being the most outrageously eccentric man in the whole country-side, and it required courage of no common order to risk an accidental encounter with him. He might chance, of course, to be in an extremely affable humour, but it was impossible to make sure of this beforehand; and one thing was quite certain, that the natural frankness of his intercourse with his fellow-men was not likely to be modified by any sense of tact, or even of common decency. What he thought he said, and he often delighted in saying something worse than his deliberate thought. Not many years before, his family had owned the whole of the estate on which he was now content to rent a pretty cottage, standing some miles from the sea, in a few acres of pine-wood. Here he lived for a great part of the year, alone with his quaint old housekeeper Jenny, taking no part in the social life of the neighbourhood, but calling on whom he chose, when he chose, regardless of all etiquette in the matter. Strange tales were told of him--tales to which Jenny listened in sphinx-like silence, never giving wing to a bit of gossip by so much as an "Ay" or "Nay." She had grown thoroughly accustomed to the old man's ways, and it seemed to be nothing to her if his language was as strong as his potions. "Have a glass of whisky and water, Colonel?" Mrs Hamilton had asked one cold morning, when he dropped into her house soon after breakfast. "Thank you, madam," he had replied, "I won't trouble you for the water." The clever old lady was a prime favourite with him, the more so as she considered it the prescriptive right of a soldier of good family to be as outrageous as he chose. He was a kind-hearted man, too, and fond of children, though they rarely lost their fear of him. He was reported to be "unco near," but if he met a bright-faced child whom he knew, in his favourite resort, the post-office, he would say-- "Sixpenn'orth of sweets for this young lady, Mr Dalgleish. You may put in as many more as you like from yourself, but sixpenn'orth will be from me." Mona was somewhat curious to see the old man, as she fancied that in her childhood she had heard her father speak of him; but her time was fully occupied in the shop for some days after her return. Rachel had actually consented to have the old place re-papered and painted, and when Mona put the finishing touch to her arrangements one afternoon, no one would have recognised "Miss Simpson's shop." Mona clapped her hands in triumph, and feasted her eyes on the work of reformation. Then she looked at her watch, but it was already late, and as the Colonel's wood lay three or four miles off, her visit had to be postponed once more. She was too tired to sketch, so she took a book and strolled down to Castle Maclean.