"Ronald," replied his father coldly, "we will hear all this matter afterwards." Then turning to the gillies, "Dugald Stuart, and you Alpin Oig," said he, "carry away this quarry to the housekeeper, and desire her to fill your queghs for you. I have had a visit from Sir Allan Lisle," resumed Stuart, when the Highlanders had obeyed his order and retired. "Hah! you change countenance already: this has been a mysterious matter. He has been here to return thanks for your pulling him out of Isla, where he was nearly drowned, poor man, a day or two since,—a circumstance which you seem to have thought too worthless to mention to me. But there is another matter, on which I might at least have been consulted," he added, watching steadily the changes in the countenance of the young man, whose heart fluttered with excitement. "You have formed an attachment to some girl in the neighbourhood, which has reached the ears of this Allan Lisle although it never came to mine, and the intercourse has continued for years although I have been ignorant of it. Ronald, my boy, who is the girl? As your father, I have at least a right to inquire her name and family." "Do pray excuse me," faltered the other, playing nervously with his bonnet; "I am too much embarrassed at present to reply,—some other time. Ah! your anger would but increase, I fear, were you to know." "It does increase! Surely she is not a daughter of that grim churl Corrieoich up the glen yonder? I have seen his tawdry kimmers at the county ball. I can scarcely think this flame of yours is a child of his. You remember the squabble I had with him about firing on his people, who were dragging the loch with nets under the very tower windows. By Heaven! is she a daughter of his?" cried his father in the loud and imperative tone so natural to a Highlander. "Answer me, I command you, Ronald Stuart!" "She is not, I pledge you my word," replied the young man gently. "Ronald!" exclaimed the old gentleman, a dark flush gathering on his cheek, "she must be some mean and contemptible object, otherwise you would not shrink from the mention of her name, was it gentle and noble, in this coward way." "Coward I never was," replied Ronald bitterly. "I may shrink before my own father, when I would scorn to quail before the angry eye of any other man who lives and breathes. Nor do I blush to own the name of—of this lady. She is Alice, the daughter of Sir Allan Lisle, of Inchavon. Ah, sir! I fear I have applied a match to a mine; but I must await the explosion." Ronald had indeed lighted a mine. A terrible expression flashed in the eyes of the old Highlander, and gathered upon his formidable brow.