‘You had better warm your hands before going upstairs,’ he said to Duncan. ‘You must have had a very cold drive. Margaret!’ he called out, finding that his daughter was not in the sitting-room. ‘Margaret! where are you? Come away at once.’ In his eyes Margaret was a child still. He was a little annoyed that she should have been out of the way, and not in her place, ready to welcome the guest. Margaret, however, had taken her stand in the dairy, which was on the opposite side of the passage from the kitchen. She wanted to greet her brother in her own way. And Alec, as soon as he saw that she was not with his father, knew where she was. The dairy had been a favourite refuge in their childish days. It was a little out of the way, and seldom visited, while it commanded a way of retreat through the cheese-house. As soon as his father had taken charge of Cameron, Alec hurried back through the kitchen, ran along the passage, opened the dairy-door, and there, sure enough, was Margaret. ‘Maggie!’ he cried; and the two were fast locked in each other’s embrace. It was but eight weeks since they had parted; but they had never been separated before. For a moment neither spoke. ‘What made you come here, Maggie?’ asked Alec, with boyish inconsiderateness. ‘I came for the cream for tea,’ said Margaret. ‘Oh, Maggie!’ ‘I did indeed. Go and get me a light. Oh, Alec! it has been so lonely without you!’ She kissed him again, and pushed him out of the dairy. Then she burst into tears. He was not so glad to see her as she had been to see him. He was changed; she knew he was changed, though she had not really seen him. He was going to be a man, to grow beyond her, to forget, perhaps to despise her. Why had he asked why she had come there? Surely he might have---- At this point in Margaret’s reflections, Alec returned with a candle, and seeing the traces of tears on his sister’s cheeks, he turned and gave her another hug. She tenderly returned the caress; but her first words were: ‘Why did you bring a stranger home with you, Alec? And we are to be together such a short time, too!’ ‘Oh, nonsense, Maggie! Cameron is a great friend of mine, and you’ll like him, I’m sure. But there’s father calling; we must go.’ Mr. Lindsay had divined what his daughter had been doing; but he thought it was now quite time that she should come forward and play her part as hostess. ‘You go first, Alec,’ she said, taking up the cream-jug which she had brought as her excuse for her visit to the dairy. ‘And I tell you, sir, that till we have the ballot we can have no security against persecution,’ Mr. Lindsay was exclaiming, as they entered the sitting-room. ‘A man cannot vote now according to his conscience unless he is prepared to risk being driven from his home, to lose his very livelihood. Let me give you an instance----’