And if our good friend the Laird had been but twenty years younger—with his battery of irresistible jokes, and his great and obvious affection for this stray guest of ours, to say nothing of his dignity and importance as a Commissioner of Strathgovan? What chance would a poor Scotch student have had, with his test-tubes and his scientific magazines, his restless, audacious speculations and eager ambitions? On the one side, wealth, ease, a pleasant facetiousness, and a comfortable acceptance of the obvious facts of the universe—including water-rates and steam fire-engines; on the other, poverty, unrest, the physical struggle for existence, the mental struggle with the mysteries of life: who could doubt what the choice would be? However, there was no thought of this rivalry now. The Laird had abdicated in favour of his nephew, Howard, about whom he had been speaking a good deal to Mary Avon of late. And Angus—though he was always very kind and timidly attentive to Miss Avon—seemed nevertheless at times almost a little afraid of her; or perhaps it was only a vein of shyness that cropped up from time to time through his hard mental characteristics. In any case, he was at this moment neither the shy lover nor the eager student; he was full of the prospect of having sole command of the ship during a long night on the Atlantic, and he hurried us up on deck after dinner without a word about that return-battle at bezique. The night had come on apace, though there was still a ruddy mist about the northern skies, behind the dusky purple of the Coolin hills. The stars were out overhead; the air around us was full of the soft cries of the divers; occasionally, amid the lapping of the water, we could hear some whirring by of wings. Then the red port light and the green starboard light were brought up from the forecastle, and fixed in their place; the men went below; Angus Sutherland took the tiller; the Laird kept walking backwards and forwards as a sort of look-out; and the two women were as usual seated on rugs together in some invisible corner—crooning snatches of ballads, or making impertinent remarks about people much wiser and older than themselves. "Now, Angus," says the voice of one of them—apparently from somewhere about the companion, "show us that you can sail the yacht properly, and we will give you complete command during the equinoctials." "You speak of the equinoctials," said he, laughing, "as if it was quite settled I should be here in September." "Why not?" said she, promptly. "Mary is my witness you promised. You wouldn’t go and desert two poor lone women?"