the rain falls alike on the just and the unjust, and he had, by good fortune, the art to take advantage of the good things which Providence sent him. Lily played a game of piquette with him, “not so very badly,” he said with happy condescension, and was in time advanced to chess; but there showed signs of beating her instructor, which made Sir Robert think chess was a little too much for his head. In moments of weakness they even came down to simple draughts, and thus got through the long evenings which the old gentleman had so much feared, but which now were the happiest part of the day. “I am told you have been here for a long time, Miss Ramsay,” Lady Dalzell said, who was the great lady of the neighborhood: “how was it we never knew? We are here, of course, only for a short time in the year, but long enough to have driven over to Dalrugas had we known.” “I have been here,” said Lily, “for two years--but how it is my neighbors have not known I cannot tell. I could scarcely send round a fiery cross to say that a small person of no great account had arrived at her uncle’s house.” “I should have thought Sir Robert would have written or made some provision. Do you really mean that you have been without a chaperon, without protection?” “Even as you see me,” said Lily, with a laugh. “And nothing ever happened,” said the great lady, “to make you feel uncomfortable?” Did she look at Lily with some meaning in her eyes? Did she mean nothing? Who could tell? There might have been a whole world of _sous-entendus_ in what Lady Dalzell said, or there might be nothing at all. Lily met her gaze with perhaps a little more directness than was necessary, but she did not change color. “There was no raid made upon the house,” said Lily. “I never was in any danger that I know of. There was Dougal, who would have fought for me to the death--perhaps, or, at all events, till some one came to help him. And I had two women who took only too much care of me.” “Ah, it was not perils of that kind I was thinking of,” said Lady Dalzell, shaking her head. “I am sorry,” said Lily--“or perhaps I should rather be glad--that I don’t know what perils your ladyship was thinking of.” Then the young lady of the party, Lady Dalzell’s daughter, interposed, and began to talk of the approaching Christmas and the entertainments to be given in the neighborhood. “If we had only known, we should have had you to the ball,” she said. “We had not one last New Year, but the year before, and you were here then.” “Yes, I was here then.” “It was the year of that dreadful snow-storm. How lonely it must have been for you, shut up for that long fortnight. Mamma, imagine! Miss Ramsay was here all alone the year of the snow-storm, shut up in Dalrugas--and we had our ball and all sorts of things.” “I hope Miss Ramsay had some friends or something to amuse her,” said Lady Dalzell.