‘Come away, Mr. Lindsay,’ she said graciously, as she extended to him a remarkably well-developed hand and arm. ‘I’m just fairly delighted to see you. It will be an extraordinary pleasure to get rid of Hector and John Thompson, though it should be but for three hours in the day. You wouldn’t believe, Mr. Lindsay, what these two, not to speak of Douglas and Phemie--I often tell her father she should have been a boy--cost me in anxiety. I wonder I’m not worn to a shadow. The day before yesterday, now, not content with going in to bathe four times, they managed to drop Jamsie--that’s the one next to Douglas, Mr. Lindsay--over the edge of the boat, and the bairn wasn’t able to speak when they pulled him in again.’ ‘Oh, ma!’ protested the young gentleman referred to, ‘I could have got in again by myself, only John Thompson hit me a whack on the head with his oar, trying to pull me nearer the boat.’ ‘I don’t think it’s safe for the boys to be out in the little boat by themselves, without either me or their father to look after them. I don’t mind their being in the four-oar. What do you think, Mr. Lindsay?’ ‘Really, I can hardly say, Mrs. Fraser, seeing that I know nothing of boating. I haven’t had a chance of learning; I hope you will give me a lesson,’ he added, turning to his new pupils. The boys, who had been staring at Alec with a suspicious expression, brightened up at this; and it was arranged that the first lesson in boating should be given next day. On the following afternoon Alec called at Glendhu, his uncle’s house, to inquire whether any of the family had arrived; and was told that they intended to come down in about a fortnight. In the evening, as he looked over his newspaper, his eyes fell upon a paragraph which informed him that Mr. Taylor, Professor of History in the University of Glasgow, had died suddenly the day before. Alec was shocked and surprised at the news; but the thought that was uppermost in his mind was that in all probability he would never see Laura Mowbray again. Now that her uncle was dead she would go back to her friends in London; and in a few months she would forget him. Not until that moment had Alec realized how constantly the thought of this girl had been in his mind, how he had made her image play a part in all his dreams. And now it was over! The world which had seemed so fair and bright but an hour ago was dull and lifeless now.