"We brought our sandwiches for lunch with us," explained one in reply to Mrs. Vane's commonplace about the long drive; "and dear Lady Hooker said we might rely on Highland hospitality for tea; and really it was exquisite, a dream of beauty, and so interesting, too! Dear Lady Hooker says that a portion of Waverley was really written in this neighbourhood." "I hope they were not the opening ones, then," remarked Mrs. Vane, carelessly. "They always make me inclined to agree for the time with the man who said it was a pity Sir Walter wrote in such small print." A perfectly bovine silence fell on her group, broken, however, by a determined voice from over the way: "I agree with you absolutely, at least, as absolutely as the limitations of human life allow. There is a lack of spiritual insight in Sir Walter, a want of emotional instinct, an almost brutal content with things as they are. His style is doubtless good, but personally I confess to being unable to appreciate it fully. Even on a second reading I find the story distracts my mind." The speaker was a slim, rather elegant-looking girl, with an odd mixture of eagerness and stolidity on her face. "She writes a great deal," said Mrs. Vane's next-door neighbour in an undertone of gratification, as if she gained a certain distinction by being of the same party. "Only a hundred brace!" came Lady Hooker's voice, compassionately. "That's very poor, scarcely worth writing for--but then, you don't rent the place, of course; that makes the difference. Sir Joseph doesn't go in for grouse, of course; he is a deer man. But we couldn't get on under five hundred brace for the table, we really couldn't. Cooks are so extravagant. You will hardly believe it, Lady Temple, but my Glasgow beef bill last week was over nine pounds, and we had three sheep besides, and--how many deer was it, Miss Jones? Six? Yes, six deer." "That seems enough even for Noah's Ark or a menagerie," said Mrs. Vane, sympathetically, and Lady George gave her a grateful smile. "But then, of course, the servants won't touch venison," went on Lady Hooker, contentedly; "though really it makes very fair clear soup--it does, indeed. Even Sir Joseph does not object; and he is so particular. When we had the Marquis of Steyne's place in Ross-shire----" "Ah! there are the children," said Lady George, with a sigh of relief. "I thought, Lady Hooker, that my little boy and girl--oh, nurse! I did not intend Master Blasius----" But nurse apparently had other views--possibly that of hearing the pipes downstairs--for she feigned not to hear, and set Blazes down on his feet with that final "jug" behind to his smock frock which is the usual parting admonition to behave nicely.