She was met in the doorway by the quaintest old man she had ever beheld. His clean-shaven face was a network of wrinkles, and he wore a nut-brown wig surmounted by a red night-cap. "Who are you?" he asked abruptly. "I am Mona Maclean." Some curious impulse prompted her to add, for the first time during her stay at Borrowness, not "Miss Simpson's cousin," but, "Gordon Maclean's daughter." He seized her almost roughly by the shoulder, and turned her face to the light. "By Gad, so you are!" he exclaimed, "though you are not so bonny as your mother was before you. But come in, come in; and tell me all about it." He opened the door of an old-fashioned, smoke-seasoned parlour, and Mona went in. "But I did not mean to disturb you," she said. "I came to see Jenny." "Tut, tut, sit down, sit down! Jenny, damn ye, come and put a spunk to this fire. There's a young lady here." The old woman came in, bobbing to Mona as she passed. She was not at all surprised to see Miss Simpson's assistant in her master's parlour. One of Jenny's chief qualifications for her post of housekeeper was the fact that she had long ceased to speculate about the Colonel's vagaries. "I wonder what I have got that I can offer you?" said the old man meditatively. He unlocked a small sideboard, produced from it some rather mouldy sweet biscuits, and poured out a glass of wine. "That's lady's wine," he said, "so you need not be afraid of it. It's not what I drink myself." He laughed, and, helping himself to a small glass of whisky, he looked across at his visitor. "Here's to old times and Gordon Maclean!" he said, "the finest fellow that ever kept open house at Rangoon," and he tossed off the whisky at a gulp. Mona drank the toast, and smiled through a sudden and blinding mist of tears. It was meat and drink to her to hear her father's praise even on lips like these. "Come, come, don't fret," said the Colonel kindly. "He was a fine fellow, as I say, but I think he knew the way to heaven all the same." "I am quite sure of that." "That's right, that's right. Where are you stopping--the Towers?--Balnamora?" "No, no; I am staying at Borrowness, with my cousin Miss Simpson." He stared at her blankly. "Miss Simpson?" he said, "Rachel Simpson!" His jaw dropped, and, throwing back his head on the top of his chair, he burst into an unpleasant laugh. "Your father was a rich man, though he died young," he said, recovering himself suddenly. "He must have left you a tidy little portion." "So he did," said Mona. "Things were sadly mismanaged after his death; but in the end I got what was quite sufficient for me." "You have had a good education?--learned to sing, and parley-voo, and"--he ran his fingers awkwardly up and down the table--"this sort of thing?" Mona laughed. "Yes," she said, "I have learned all that." He puffed away at his pipe for a time in silence.