Mrs. Christie, to whom as to Chuchundra the musk-rat, every step seemed fraught with danger, said she would not venture downstairs again, but would slip away to bed. At supper Arthur Townshend found himself between the other Miss Christie, who was much engrossed with the man on her right, and an anæmic-looking young woman, the wife of one of the ministers present, who when conversed with said "Ya-as" and turned away her head. This proved so discouraging that presently he gave up the attempt, and tried to listen to the conversation that was going on between Elizabeth and Mr. M'Cann. "Let me see," Mr. M'Cann was saying, "where is your father's church? Oh ay, down there, is it? A big, half-empty kirk. I know it fine. Ay, gey stony ground, and if you'll excuse me saying it, your father's not the man for the job. What they want is a man who will start a P.S.A. and a band and give them a good rousing sermon. A man with a sense of humour. A man who can say strikin' things in the pulpit." (He sketched the ideal man, and his companion had no difficulty in recognising the portrait of Mr. M'Cann himself.) "With the right man that church might be full. Not, mind you, that I'm saying anything against your father, he does his best; but he's not advanced enough, he belongs to the old evangelicals--congregations like something brighter." Presently he drifted into politics, and lived over again his meetings in Ayrshire, likening himself to Alexander Peden and Richard Cameron, until Elizabeth, whose heart within her was hot with hate, turned the flood of his conversation into another channel by asking some question about his family. Four children he said he had, all very young; but he seemed to take less interest in them than in the fact that Lizzie, his wife, found it quite impossible to keep a "girrl." It was surprising to hear how bitterly this apostle of Freedom spoke of the "bit servant lasses" on whose woes he loved to dilate from the pulpit when he was inveighing against the idle, selfish rich. Two imps of mischief woke in Elizabeth's grey eyes as she listened. "Yes," she agreed, as her companion paused for a second in his indictment. "Servants are a nuisance. What a relief it would be to have slaves!" "Whit's that?" said Mr. M'Cann, evidently not believing he had heard aright. Elizabeth leaned towards him, her face earnest and sympathetic, her voice, when she spoke, honey-sweet, "like doves taboring upon their breasts." "I said wouldn't it be delightful if we had slaves--nice fat slaves?"