A notable reform of the last half century in the Highlands has been seen in the improvement of the inns. I can remember the primitive condition of some of them which have been enlarged into what are now pompously called hotels. Many years ago I had occasion to spend a night or two in one of these antique and uncomfortable houses in Skye. One Sunday morning I was in bed and awake, when the bedroom door was quietly opened, and by degrees a half-dressed female figure stealthily entered. She looked at the bed to see if I were still asleep, and as I kept my eyes half closed, she thought herself unobserved. Stepping gently across to the dressing-table, she opened my razor-case, and having possessed herself of one of the razors, as quietly retreated. I lay conjecturing what use the landlady (for it was she) would make of the implement. Visions of murder floated through my mind, but after a time the door once more opened, and my hostess, as quietly as before, stalked across the room and replaced the razor in the case. She seemed too calm for a murderess, and there had been no noise in the house, but the razor had evidently served some definite purpose. I got up, dressed, and came down to breakfast. My host met me at the foot of the staircase with a smile on his face, which on the previous evening had been ‘rough and razorable,’ but had now lost its stubbly beard of a week’s growth. I then saw one use at least to which my razor had probably been put. Whether the old lady had any further private manipulations of her own in which the implement played a part, I never found out. [Sidenote: INNS IN SKYE]