"Don’t do anything, Uncle Tom," pleaded Isla, "please, don’t. There are reasons--other reasons--why it would be better not, and Malcolm is quite determined. Anyone can see that." "Well, well. It doesn’t seem the right thing, but I don’t want to be officious, and you at least have shown yourself capable of managing your own affairs up to now. Take Malcolm in hand now. The best of us need the mothering that a good woman can give. But I hope, my dear, that my next visit to Achree will be a happier one--namely, to give you away perhaps to some gallant bridegroom. Eh--what?" He smiled his big, enveloping smile as he lifted her chin in his hand and kissed her face. "That isn’t likely to happen. But thank you all the same, dear Uncle Tom," said Isla gratefully. "And, if we really are to be buried in the sand dunes over there and have to subsist on anæmic omelettes and the everlasting poulet roti, mind you come to us. And Barras in the winter is a very good place. It had a Riviera temperature up to March this year. In November, thank God, we’ll make tracks for Barras again." Again Isla thanked him, and, Malcolm appearing on the scene, she said no more. But she was sensible of relief as she saw them drive away. So long as Uncle Tom remained at Achree anything might happen. His big, kindly, blundering feet would stray into all sorts of forbidden paths. She spent the morning in the house, going slowly and with a sort of lingering tenderness over every bit of it. The smart servants of the Rosmeads had managed to efface themselves in a very wonderful way, and the magnificent simplicity of the funeral of Mackinnon had left its deep impression on their minds. Isla thanked each one of them individually in that way of hers that could draw out all that was best in a human being. She offered nothing, because she had naught to give, and would not mock them with pretence. Malcolm, less delicately conscientious, scattered silver among them--the silver that had come out of Isla’s hoard in the bureau at Creagh. Malcolm returned to announce that he had engaged Jamie Forbes to come up from the hotel to drive them to Creagh at three o’clock of the afternoon. "I want to go to Darrach first, Malcolm, to see Elspeth Maclure. Everything is ready to lift, and I shall get up by tea-time." "But how will you get up?" "Walk, of course--that is nothing." "But I can make Jamie wait till you are ready. He can stop here till four, by which time surely you could be done with that wind-bag, Elspeth Maclure." "No, I shall stop to tea with her and come when I’m ready, Malcolm. I’ve neglected her of late, and I have lots of things to tell her." Malcolm gave his shoulders a shrug. "I’ve never understood your fondness for Elspeth Maclure, Isla. Her tongue is a yard long and none too kindly. She was as nearly as possible impertinent to me one day when I stopped at Darrach." Isla looked unbelieving and wholly unconvinced.