sufficiently auspicious beginning. ’Carry,’ said her father, as they walked home together in the gathering darkness, ’do you know what you are expected to do? You have caught your first salmon: that means a sovereign to the men in the boat.’ ’I will give a sovereign to the young fellow,’ said she, ’and willingly; but I can’t offer money to Ronald.’ ’Why not? it is the custom here.’ ’Oh, I declare I couldn’t do it. My gracious, no! I would sooner—I would sooner—no, no, pappa dear, I could not offer him money.’ ’Well, we must do something. You see, we are taking up all his time. I suppose we’ll have to send for another gillie—if you care to go on with that boat——’ ’I should think I did!’ she said. ’But why should you send for another gillie so long as Ronald says he is not busy? I dare say he can tell us when he is; I don’t believe he’s half so shy as he looks. And he’s much better fun than one of these Highlanders; he wants his own way; and, with all his shyness, he has a pretty good notion of himself and his own opinions. He don’t say you are a fool if you differ from him; but he makes you feel like it. And then, besides,’ she added lightly, ’we can make it up to him some way or other. Why, I have been giving him a great deal of good advice this afternoon.’ ’You? About what?’ ’About Illinois,’ she said. *CHAPTER XV.* *WILD TIMES.* What that mysterious gloom had meant on the previous evening was revealed to them the next morning by a roaring wind that came swooping down from the Clebrig slopes, shaking the house, and howling through the bent and leafless trees. The blue surface of the lake was driven white with curling tips of foam; great bursts of sunlight sped across the plains and suddenly lit up the northern hills; now and again Ben Hope or Ben Hee or Ben Loyal would disappear altogether behind a vague mass of gray, and then as quickly break forth again into view, the peaks and shoulders all aglow and the snow-patches glittering clear and sharp. The gillies hung about the inn door, disconsolate. Nelly made no speed with the luncheon-baskets. And probably Mr. Hodson and his daughter would have relapsed into letter-writing, reading, and other feeble methods of passing a rough day in the Highlands, had not Ronald come along and changed the whole aspect of affairs. For if the wind was too strong, he pointed out, to admit of their working the phantom-minnow properly, they might at least try the fly. There were occasional lulls in the gale. It was something to do. Would Miss Hodson venture? Miss Hodson replied by swinging her waterproof on her arm; and they all set out.