"Oh, now I know what dear people you are! God bless you! I should like to do that if it would not hurt or trouble you. Then all the people he loved and who loved him can come and see him before they take him away to Balquhidder. Oh, thank you, thank you, I want to come and see your dear mother. I will go back with you now if you will take me." She was like a creature transformed, and while the sight touched Vivien Rosmead inexpressibly it also filled her with a great sadness. For, if this was how Isla Mackinnon regarded the house of her fathers, what must it be to her to see strangers in it and to have before her eyes the prospect of losing it altogether? "Come, then," said Vivien with alacrity. "The evenings are so long and golden now that we can easily bring you back before dark. My brother will drive you himself." "I am thinking," said Isla, and as they turned to go, it almost seemed as if the spring had come back to her step, "I am thinking why should you go out? There is plenty of room for us all. If you would only lend us one or two rooms for a few days and let us have the freedom of the house----" "It would not be the same at all," said Vivien decidedly. "What you want is to shut the door upon the outside world and forget all about us, to have only your own people about you and to have to consider nobody but them. It is only in this way that my mother will arrange it. I am sure that you will find that this is the best arrangement?" "It is a great thing for you to do," said Isla breathlessly. "I have never heard or known of anybody who would think of a thing so beautiful." "Oh, nonsense. There are many far more beautiful things done in the world every day, and nobody hears of them. It will cost us nothing, you see. And, moreover, it is the right thing to do. It would be clearly wrong for the Chief of the Mackinnons to be carried to his last rest from this lonely and inaccessible place, beautiful though it is. He ought to be--he must be, borne from the house of his fathers." "Yes, yes," said Isla, with a little sob in her voice. "To think that you feel like that, that--you understand everything! Now, I’m so very glad that you have Achree." Her hardness had melted and the desperate hunted look had gone from her eyes. Once more she was alert, full of affairs, thinking of all there was to do and ready for all emergencies. As she drove down Glenogle beside the smart groom on the front seat of the dogcart her face did not once lose its uplifted look. Her eyes swam in tears as Vivien and she swept through the familiar gates of Achree. "Tell me, dear Mrs. Rodney Payne, was it your mother her own self, who thought of this--this beautiful thing?" "No, my dear," answered Vivien quietly, "it was my brother. He is like that. He thinks always of the thing that will make most people happy and of how to do it in the happiest way."