Up the hill, then, with a flourish for the last!—the dust rolling away in clouds behind us—the view over the Atlantic widening as we ascend. And here is Castle Osprey, as we have dubbed the place, with its wide open door, and its walls half hidden with tree-fuchsias, and its great rose-garden. Had Fair Rosamond herself come to Castle Osprey that evening, she could not have been waited on with greater solicitude than the Laird showed in assisting this "shilpit bit thing" to alight—though, indeed there was a slight stumble, of which no one took any notice at the time. He busied himself with her luggage quite unnecessarily. He suggested a cup of tea, though it wanted but fifteen minutes to dinner-time. He assured her that the glass was rising—which was not the case. And when she was being hurried off to her own room to prepare for dinner—by one who rules her household with a rod of iron—he had the effrontery to tell her to take her own time: dinner could wait. The man actually proposed to keep dinner waiting—in Castle Osprey. That this was love at first sight, who could doubt? And perhaps the nimble brain of one who was at this moment hurriedly dressing in her own room—and whom nature has constituted an indefatigable matchmaker—may have been considering whether this rich old bachelor might not marry, after all. And if he were to marry, why should not he marry the young lady in whom he seemed to have taken so sudden and warm an interest? As for her: Mary Avon was now two or three-and-twenty; she was not likely to prove attractive to young men; her small fortune was scarcely worth considering; she was almost alone in the world. Older men had married younger women. The Laird had no immediate relative to inherit Denny-mains and his very substantial fortune. And would they not see plenty of each other on board the yacht?