Traquair found McTavish smoking a thick London cigarette upon the steps of the side entrance, and gazing happily into a little garden of dark yew and vivid scarlet geraniums with daring edgings of brightest blue lobelia. "Will you be making any changes," asked Traquair, "when you come into your own?" McTavish looked up with a smile and handed his open cigarette case to the older man. "Mr. Traquair," he said, "I'm young and a stranger. I wish you could find it in your heart to be an uncle to me." Traquair accepted a cigarette and sat down, first assuring himself that the stone steps were dry. "If I were your nephew," said McTavish, "and came to you all out of breath, and told you that I wished to marry Miss McTavish's housekeeper, what would you say?" "I would say," said Traquair, "that she was the daughter of a grand family that had fallen from their high estate. I would say, 'Charge, nephew, charge!'" "Do you mean it!" exclaimed McTavish. "There's no more lovely lass in the United Kingdom," said Traquair, "than Miss--Miss--" "MacNish," McTavish helped him; "and she would be mistress where she had been servant. That's a curious twist of fate." "You have made up your mind, then," said Traquair, "to claim your own?" "By no means--yet," said McTavish. "I was only speculating. It's all in the air. Suppose uncle, that Miss MacNish throws me down!" "Throws you down!" Traquair was shocked. "Well," said McTavish humbly, "you told me to charge." "To charge," said Traquair testily, "but not to grapple." "In my country," said McTavish, "when a girl refuses to marry a man they call it throwing him down, giving him the sack, or handing him a lemon." "Yours is an exceptional country," said Traquair. Miss MacNish appeared in the doorway behind them. "I'm sorry to have been so long," she said; "I had to give out the linen for luncheon." McTavish flung away his cigarette, and sprang to his feet as if some one had stuck a pin into him. Traquair, according to the schedule, vanished. "It seemed very, very long," said McTavish. "Miss McTavish," said Miss MacNish, "has consented to see you." "Good Heavens!--when?" "Now." "But I don't want to see her _now_." "But you told me"--Miss MacNish looked thoroughly puzzled--"you told me just what you were going to say to her. You said it was all predestined." "Miss MacNish, it was not Miss McTavish I was thinking of--I'm sure it wasn't. It was you." "Are you proposing to me?" she asked. "Of course, I am. Come into the garden--I can't talk on these steps, right on top of a gravel walk with a distant vista of three gardeners and a cartful of sand." "I must say," said Miss MacNish, "that this is the suddenest thing that ever happened to me." "But you said you believed in love at first sight," McTavish explained. "You knew yesterday what had happened to me--don't say you didn't, because I saw you smiling to yourself. You might come into the garden and let me say my say." She didn't budge.