Steamboats were novel luxuries in those days; but the West of Scotland was in the van of such improvements, and Loch Diarmid had secured for itself one of the earliest of those little fussy agents of civilisation and trade. The steamboat fretted its silvery bosom daily, opening up the world to the hill folk, to whom, in former days, the means of descent to the ordinary level of humanity were difficult. The steamboat fussed its little way from point to point, touching at the little piers on each side of the Loch, and at less populous corners approached by boats, the universal means of communication throughout the district. The Lochhead was its terminus and starting-point, and the little party from the House were installed in the best places and received with that rustic Scotch courtesy which, though not deferential, is so cordial and friendly. Thus they went gliding along, alive to all the interests around them, when the steamer slackened its course opposite Brandon and waited for the ferry-boat. The ladies did not take much notice of the ferry-boat. Their attention was fully fixed on Ardnamore. It was a homely, old-fashioned, whitewashed house, standing high on the brae, with a steep green slope surrounded by trees, cleared in front of it, and the white walls nestling into the darker heather of the summit above. The gable window was in a projecting wing, and all the rest of the house was still closed, which made it more remarkable still to see a human figure there. ‘Can they have come home?’ said Miss Catherine. ‘Oh, no--never that,’ said Isabel; ‘perhaps it is only the housekeeper. She might be putting the house in order for the fine weather.’ ‘Or they may have had sense enough to let it, if they cannot take the good of it,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘it is a good house. There are--let me see--five, six, nine bedrooms, if I mind rightly; two in that wing, and one on the ground-floor, and the rest at the back, looking out on the hill. And the drawing-room is a pretty room, painted in panels, and all the length of the house. Oh me--if Magdalene Diarmid could have lived to see her only son wandering about the world as he is doing----’