"I hope you are not frightened, Miss Avon," says Mr. Smith, quite cheerfully; though he is probably listening, like the rest of us, for the sullen roaring of breakers in the dark. "No—I am bewildered—I don’t know what it is all about." "You need not be afraid," Angus Sutherland says to her, abruptly, for he will not have the Youth interfere in such matters, "with Captain John on board. He sees better in a fog than most men in daylight." "We are in the safe keeping of one greater than any Captain John," says the Laird, simply and gravely: he is not in any alarm. Then a call from the bow. "Helm hard down, sir!" "Hard down it is, John!" Then the rattle again of sheets and sails; and as she swings round again on the other tack, what is that vague, impalpable shadow one sees—or fancies one sees—on the starboard bow? "Is that the land, John?" Angus Sutherland asks, as the skipper comes aft. "Oh, ay!" says he, with a chuckle. "I was thinking to myself it wass the loom of Duart I sah once or twice. And I wass saying to Hector if it wass his sweetheart he will look, for he will see better in the night." Then by and by this other object, to which all attention is summoned: the fog grows thinner and thinner; some one catches sight of a pale, glimmering light on our port quarter; and we know that we have left Lismore lighthouse in our wake. And still the fog grows thinner, until it is suffused with a pale blue radiance; then suddenly we sail out into the beautiful moonlight, with the hills along the horizon all black under the clear and solemn skies. It is a pleasant sail into the smooth harbour on this enchanted night: the far windows of Castle Osprey are all aglow; the mariners are to rest for a while from the travail of the sea. And as we go up the moonlit road, the Laird is jocular enough; and asks Mary Avon, who is his companion, whether she was prepared to sing "Lochaber no more!" when we were going blindly through the mist. But our young Doctor remembers that hour or so of mist for another reason. There was something in the sound of the girl’s voice he cannot forget. The touch of her hand was slight; but his arm has not even yet parted with the thrill of it. *CHAPTER XII.* *HIS LORDSHIP.* Miss Avon is seated in the garden in front of Castle Osprey, under the shade of a drooping ash. Her book lies neglected beside her, on the iron seat; she is idly looking abroad on the sea and the mountains, now all aglow in the warm light of the afternoon.