At first Rowena had difficulty in getting her husband to consent to this arrangement. "What does the child want to go away from home for!" Mysie was enchanted with the invitation. She had never been away alone before, and Milly Holt was her "bosom friend." So she informed her father. "It does her good to get away from us, sometimes," said Rowena. "Yes, I really mean it. We are too old and staid for her. I would not send her anywhere, but she can get nothing but good where she is going." "I should have thought it would be better for her to have a change from her governess rather than from us," said her father. "I agree with you, but as it happens, Marion is not going to stay at home. She has promised to visit some old friends of hers in the North. And Mysie will have her company on the journey there and back, which is necessary, and as we are going to Kestowknockan it will all fit in beautifully." So General Macdonald gave in to his wife, which he generally did, after making his protest. Sometimes Rowena wondered if he would ever lose his old bachelor ways and ideas. Christmas came and the weather was bright and frosty. They had a very quiet time, but a happy one, and Mysie's high spirits never flagged. She received a gold watch and chain from her father as a Christmas gift, and a most beautiful edition of the Life of Flora Macdonald, with coloured illustrations, from Rowena. It would be hard to say which present she prized most. She was allowed to dine late on Christmas day, and in the midst of the meal she put down her knife and fork and leaned her elbows on the table, looking across at her father very earnestly. "Dad dear, do you remember Christmas last year when you and me sat here alone together, and it was raining and squalling, and you kept sighing, and then we talked of mother, and you said she might possibly be here another year; and then I sat on your knee by the fire afterwards, and you read me bits of her letter to you, and about the poor ill lady she was with! Doesn't it seem years ago! And we've got her now for ever. Isn't it lovely?" "Haven't you got tired of me yet, Flora?" Rowena said laughingly; but a shadow crossed her face as she, too, cast her mind back to a year ago, when she was nursing Mrs. Burke through that terrible attack of rheumatic fever. "Tired of you! Oh, mother, what an awful thing to say! Mrs. Dalziel said to Angus the other day that you'd let all the light and sunshine into the dark corners of this old house, and it does seem quite, quite different; doesn't it, Dad?" "We'll drink Mother's health presently," said General Macdonald, and Rowena declared that they would make her feel quite self-conscious and shy. Later on, they sat round the fire, in which reposed a huge Yule, and Mysie roasted chestnuts and persuaded her father to tell her some stories about his youth. When she finally went off to bed, Rowena asked her husband if he would come out on the terrace for a moment or two.