"Though she does not look very strong," continues the young Doctor, "she must have a thoroughly healthy constitution, or how could she have such a happy disposition? She is always contented; she is never put out. If you had only seen her patience and cheerfulness when she was attending that old woman—many a time I regretted it—the case was hopeless—a hired nurse would have done as well." "Hiring a nurse might not have satisfied the young lady’s notions of duty." "Well, I’ve seen women in sick-rooms, but never any one like her," said he, and then he added, with a sort of emphatic wonder, "I’m hanged if she did not seem to enjoy that, too! Then you never saw any one so particular about following out instructions." It is here suggested to our steersman that he himself may be a little too particular about following out instructions. For John of Skye’s last counsel was to keep Ardnamurchan light on our port bow. That was all very well when we were off the north of Eigg; but is Dr. Sutherland aware that the south point of Eigg—Eilean-na-Castle—juts pretty far out; and is not that black line of land coming uncommonly close on our starboard bow? With some reluctance our new skipper consents to alter his course by a couple of points; and we bear away down for Ardnamurchan. And of what did he not talk during the long starlit night—the person who ought to have been lookout sitting contentedly aft, a mute listener?—of the strange fears that must have beset the people who first adventured out to sea; of the vast expenditure of human life that must have been thrown away in the discovery of the most common facts about currents and tides and rocks; and so forth, and so forth. But ever and again his talk returned to Mary Avon. "What does the Laird mean by his suspicions about her uncle?" he asked on one occasion—just as we had been watching a blue-white bolt flash down through the serene heavens and expire in mid-air. "Mr. Frederick Smethurst has an ugly face." "But what does he mean about those relations between the man with the ugly face and his niece?" "That is idle speculation. Frederick Smethurst was her trustee, and might have done her some mischief—that is, if he is an out-and-out scoundrel; but that is all over. Mary is mistress of her own property now." Here the boom came slowly swinging over; and presently there were all the sheets of the head-sails to be looked after—tedious work enough for amateurs in the darkness of the night. Then further silence; and the monotonous rush and murmur of the unseen sea; and the dark topmast describing circles among the stars. We get up one of the glasses to make astronomical observations, but the heaving of the boat somewhat interferes with this quest after knowledge. Whoever wants to have a good idea of forked lightning has only to take up a binocular on board a pitching yacht, and try to fix it on a particular planet.