"Hubert, my headache has come back! I’m going up to my room. Will you give my excuses to Mrs. Somerville? I’d a hundred times rather starve than—than be found out." "Oh, that is all nonsense!" said he—but in an undertone, for they were now in the spacious stone-paved hall. "Go to your room, if you like; and I’ll tell Mrs. Somerville, and she’ll send you up something. You mustn’t starve, for you’re going round with me to Port Bân in the afternoon." And, of course, the gentle hostess was grieved to hear that her friend had not yet got rid of her headache; and she herself went forthwith to Mrs. Ellison’s room, to see what would most readily tempt the appetite of the poor invalid. The poor invalid was at her dressing-table, taking off her bonnet. She wheeled round. "I am so sorry, dear, about your headache—" her hostess was beginning, when the young widow went instantly to the door and shut it. Then she came back; and there was a most curious look—of laughter, perhaps—in her extremely pretty eyes. "Never mind about the headache!" she said to her astonished friend, who saw no cause for this amused embarrassment, nor yet for the exceedingly affectionate way in which both her hands had been seized. "The headache is gone. I’ve—I’ve something else to tell you—oh, you’d never guess it in the world! My dear, my dear," she cried in a whisper, and her tell-tale eyes were full of confusion as well as laughter. "You’d never guess—but—but I’ve gone and made a fool of myself for the second time!" CHAPTER III. "HOLY PALMER’S KISS." This was a bright and cheerful afternoon in November; and old George Bethune and his granddaughter were walking down Regent-street. A brilliant afternoon, indeed; and the scene around them was quite gay and animated; for the wintry sunlight was shining on the big shop-fronts, and on the busy pavements, and on the open carriages that rolled by with their occupants gorgeous in velvet and silk and fur. Nor was George Bethune moved to any spirit of envy by all this display of luxury and wealth; no more than he was oppressed by any sense of solitariness amid this slow-moving, murmuring crowd. He walked with head erect; he paid but little heed to the passers-by; he was singing aloud, and that in a careless and florid fashion— "The boat rocks at the pier o’ Leith, Fu’ loud the wind blaws frae the ferry, The ship rides by the Berwick Law, And I maun leave my bonnie Mary." But suddenly he stopped: his attention had been caught by a window, or rather a series of windows, containing all sorts of Scotch articles and stuffs. "Maisrie," said he, as his eye ran over these varied wares and fabrics, "couldn’t you—couldn’t you buy some little bit of a thing?" "Why, grandfather?" she asked.