"When your course is due north," remarks Angus Sutherland, who has relieved Mary Avon at the helm, "and when the wind is due north, you get a good deal of sailing for your money." The profound truth of this remark becomes more and more apparent as the day passes in a series of long tacks which do not seem to be bringing those far headlands of Skye much nearer to us. And if we are beating in this heavy sea all day and night, is there not a chance of one or other of our women-folk collapsing? They are excellent sailors, to be sure—but—but— Dr. Sutherland is consulted. Dr. Sutherland’s advice is prompt and emphatic. His sole and only precaution against sea-sickness is simple: resolute eating and drinking. Cure for sea-sickness, after it has set in, he declares there is none: to prevent it, eat and drink, and let the drink be _brut_ champagne. So our two prisoners are ordered below to undergo that punishment. And, perhaps, it is the _brut_ champagne, or perhaps it is merely the snugness of our little luncheon-party that prompts Miss Avon to remark on the exceeding selfishness of yachting and to suggest a proposal that fairly takes away our breath by its audacity. "Now," she says, cheerfully, "I could tell you how you could occupy an idle day on board a yacht so that you would give a great deal of happiness—quite a shock of delight—to a large number of people." Well, we are all attention. "At what cost?" says the financier of our party. "At no cost." This is still more promising. Why should not we instantly set about making all those people happy? "All that you have got to do is to get a copy of the _Field_ or of the _Times_ or some such paper." Yes; and how are we to get any such thing? Rum has no post-office. No mail calls at Canna. Newspapers do not grow on the rocks of Loch Bracadaile. "However, let us suppose that we have the paper." "Very well. All you have to do is to sit down and take the advertisements, and write to the people, accepting all their offers on their own terms. The man who wants 500*l.* for his shooting in the autumn; the man who will sell his steam-yacht for 7,000*l,*; the curate who will take in another youth to board at 200*l.* a year; the lady who wants to let her country-house during the London season; all the people who are anxious to sell things. You offer to take them all. If a man has a yacht to let on hire, you will pay for new jerseys for the men. If a man has a house to be let, you will take all the fixtures at his own valuation. All you have to do is to write two or three hundred letters—as an anonymous person, of course—and you make two or three hundred people quite delighted for perhaps a whole week!" The Laird stared at this young lady as if she had gone mad; but there was only a look of complacent friendliness on Mary Avon’s face. "You mean that you write sham letters?" says her hostess. "You gull those unfortunate people into believing that all their wishes are realised?"