"Never mind, my dear Blanche," said her brother, consolingly. "It seems to answer nicely with good children, and children ought to be good, you know. And the barometer is going up, it really is." "For wind, I suppose," replied his sister, tragically. Apparently it was for wind; at any rate, Will Cameron coming up to see the laird on business next day observed casually that this must be about the end of it; an optimistic remark which has a certain definite significance in a land of gales. Even the sportsmen were driven to the cold comfort of examining the action of each other's weapons with veiled contempt, discussing the respective merits of each other's accoutrements, from cartridge cases to leggings, and trying to forget that the wild weather was making the birds still wilder than they had been already. It appeared to have the same effect upon humanity. Sam Woodward, who had been a thorn in poor Lady George's side from the beginning, fell out with the only man who could tolerate him, and thereafter told his sister it was a beastly hole, and that he meant to make the _mater_ give him some oof, when he would cut and run to some place where they weren't so beastly stuck up. Mr. Woodward, senior, after roaming about disconsolately waiting for the post, was only appeased by Lady George's suggestion that he would be doing yeoman's service to the cause of civilisation if he composed a letter to the Postmaster-General, calling attention to the disgraceful irregularity in her Majesty's mails to Gleneira; whereupon he retired into the library and wasted several sheets of foolscap. It was on the children, however, that the weather had the most disastrous effect; so much so that Lord George, returning in the afternoon from a blow with Paul--whose patience had given way over a point-blank refusal on the under footman's part to stop another hour if he was not allowed a fire in his room before dinner--found his wife in the nursery standing helplessly before Blazes, who, in his flannel nightgown, was seated stolidly on the floor. Adam and Eve, meanwhile, were eyeing the scene from their beds, where, however, they had a liberal supply of toys. "Oh, George!" she cried appealingly, "he has such a hard, hard heart; and I am sure he must get it from your side of the family, so _do_ you think you could do anything with him?" "Put him to bed like the others," suggested his father, weakly, showing signs, at the same time, of beating a retreat, but pausing at the sight of his wife's face, which, to tell the truth, was not far from tears.