There was another tale to tell below—the big saloon aglow with candles; the white table-cover with its centre-piece of roses, nasturtiums, and ferns; the delayed dinner, or supper, or whatever it might be called, all artistically arranged; our young Doctor most humbly solicitous that Mary Avon should be comfortably seated, and, in fact, quite usurping the office of the Laird in that respect; and then a sudden sound in the galley, a hissing as of a thousand squibs, telling us that Master Fred had once more and ineffectually tried to suppress the released genie of the bottle by jamming down the cork. Forthwith the Laird, with his old-fashioned ways, must needs propose a health, which is that of our most sovereign and midge-like mistress; and this he does with an elaborate and gracious and sonorous courtesy. And surely there is no reason why Mary Avon should not for once break her habit and join in that simple ceremony; especially when it is a real live Doctor—and not only a Doctor, but an encyclopædia of scientific and all other knowledge—who would fain fill her glass? Angus Sutherland timidly but seriously pleads; and he does not plead in vain; and you would think from his look that she had conferred an extraordinary favour on him. Then we—we propose a health too—the health of the FOUR WINDS! and we do not care which of them it is who is coming to-morrow, so long as he or she comes in force. Blow, breezes, blow!—from the Coolins of Skye, or the shores of Coll, or the glens of Arisaig and Moidart—for to-morrow morning we shake out once more the white wings of the _White Dove_, and set forth for the loneliness of the northern seas. *CHAPTER VIII.* *PLOTS AND COUNTER-PLOTS.* Now the Laird has a habit—laudable or not—of lingering over an additional half-cup at breakfast, as an excuse for desultory talk; and thus it is, on this particular morning, the young people having gone on deck to see the yacht get under way, that Denny-mains has a chance of revealing to us certain secret schemes of his over which he has apparently been brooding. How could we have imagined that all this plotting and planning had been going on beneath the sedate exterior of the Commissioner for the Burgh of Strathgovan? "She’s just a wonderful bit lass!" he says, confidently, to his hostess; "as happy and contented as the day is long; and when she’s not singing to herself, her way of speech has a sort of—a sort of music in it that is quite new to me. Yes, I must admit that; I did not know that the southern English tongue was so accurate and pleasant to the ear. Ay, but what will become of her?" What, indeed! The lady whom he was addressing had often spoken to him of Mary Avon’s isolated position in the world.