How differently she spoke! And she used to call him _Malcolm_! The girl Florimel was gone, and there sat--the marchioness, was it? --or some phase of riper womanhood only? It mattered little to Malcolm. He was no curious student of man or woman. He loved his kind too well to study it. But one thing seemed plain: she had forgotten the half friendship and whole service that had had place betwixt them, and it made him feel as if the soul of man no less than his life were but as a vapour that appeareth for a little and then vanisheth away. But Florimel had not so entirely forgotten the past as Malcolm thought--not so entirely at least but that his appearance, and certain difficulties in which she had begun to find herself, brought something of it again to her mind. “I thought,” said Malcolm, assuming his best English, “your ladyship might not choose to part with an old servant at the will of a factor, and so took upon me to appeal to your ladyship to decide the question.” “But how is that? Did you not return to your fishing when the household was broken up?” “No, my lady. Mr Crathie kept me to help Stoat, and do odd jobs about the place.” “And now he wants to discharge you?” Then Malcolm told her the whole story, in which he gave such a description of Kelpie, that her owner, as she imagined herself, expressed a strong wish to see her; for Florimel was almost passionately fond of horses. “You may soon do that, my lady,” said Malcolm. “Mr Soutar, not being of the same mind as Mr Crathie, is going to send her up. It will be but the cost of the passage from Aberdeen, and she will fetch a better price here if your ladyship should resolve to part with her. She won’t fetch the third of her value anywhere, though, on account of her bad temper and ugly tricks.” “But as to yourself, MacPhail--where are you going to go?” said Florimel. “I don’t like to send you away, but, if I keep you, I don’t know what to do with you. No doubt you could serve in the house, but that would not be suitable at all to your education and previous life.” “A body wad tak you for a granny grown!” said Malcolm to himself. But to Florimel he replied--“If your ladyship should wish to keep Kelpie, you will have to keep me too, for not a creature else will she let near her.” “And pray tell me what use then can I make of such an animal,” said Florimel. “Your ladyship, I should imagine, will want a groom to attend you when you are out on horseback, and the groom will want a horse-- and here am I and Kelpie!” answered Malcolm. Florimel laughed. “I see,” she said. “You contrive I shall have a horse nobody can manage but yourself.” She rather liked the idea of a groom so mounted, and had too much well-justified faith in Malcolm to anticipate dangerous results.