Rory asked himself the question all next day, for, amidst even the sordid duties of examining the new byres and out-houses, there floated before his mind only one picture--a girl's slim figure in a short faded green skirt, leaning against a dyke, with her small head crushed against a background of faded fern, and the shy lovely eyes looking into his face. Ishbel! They said she was a changeling. Well, changeling and all, he loved her! CHAPTER II. ISHBEL'S PROMISE. "It is no use at all to go against the lass. I hef said so before now. And there are many lasses in Skye, as good as she, and with, maybe, a cow or two, or a few pounds to bring with her. There is Sheila Macdonald--Sheila will hef as much as three hundred pounds!" "As if I would look at a squinting woman"--and Duncan threw down the fishing-rod he held, furiously--"I will hef none but Ishbel, and if she will not hef me, I will do someone an injury!" His mother went on peeling potatoes, deliberately. "Rory MacPhee is stronger and bigger than you," she remarked. "And he has the eye of a hawk, and his fist is like iron. You will never take Ishbel from him by force. But perhaps, now, there might be a little plan--chust a little plan." He picked up the rod. His cunning eyes grew intent. Catriona resumed, in her high-pitched voice, speaking without a pause in her occupation: "The best thing would be that they would quarrel. And I will tell you a way. He does not like to hear that they are all saying she is a changeling; and he does not like her to talk of the good folk. When she told him the story of the kelpie that followed Ross MacRae over the muir, and drowned him at last in the Rowan Pool, he was angry, and called it all nonsense, and said that she should not repeat such folly. And Ishbel did not like that. She was asking me about the Cave of Gold only yesterday, and when it was that anyone might see the fairies dancing, and if the tide would suit to go. So I told her it was on Midsummer's Night at twelve o'clock, and she is just mad to go! Chust as mad! But Rory was there, too, and I was listening at the door, after, and I heard him say that it was all just talk and folly, and that he would not have her go; that it was too late, and that squalls came on, and our boat was not good at all. She begged and prayed that he would take her, and he said, 'No'! Chust always, 'No'!" "Very well, then," Duncan cried impatiently, as she paused, "I suppose she is so mad with love that she gave it up." "She is pretty mad with the love," his mother agreed, "and so she gave in. 'And I am going to Portree, Ishbel,' I heard him say, 'to see what Mr. Campbell, the agent, is wishing to say to me, and you will promise not to go when I am away?--for it is not good for a lass like you to be out so late. And you will promise me?' And she promised. He said he would bring her a new brooch--like a claymore, that the man at Oban is making with the Iona pebbles--and they kissed, and he is gone."