"The seal ought to be proud to have such a fate," said the Laird, gallantly. "Ye are saving him from a miserable and lingering death of cold, or hunger, or old age. And whereas in that case nobody would care anything or see anything more about him, ye give him a sort of immortality in your dining-room, and ye are never done admiring him. A proud fellow he ought to be. And if the seals about here are no very fine in their skins, still it would be a curiosity, and at present we have not one at all at Denny-mains." Again this reference to Denny-mains: Angus Sutherland glanced from one to the other; but what could he see in the dusk? Then we got back to the yacht: what a huge grey ghost she looked in the gloom! And as we were all waiting to get down the companion, Angus Sutherland put his hand on his hostess’s arm, and stayed her. "You must be wrong," said he, simply. "I have offended her somehow. She has not spoken ten words to me to-day." *CHAPTER XV.* *HIDDEN SPRINGS.* "Well, perhaps it is better, after all," says a certain person, during one of those opportunities for brief conjugal confidences that are somewhat rare on board ship. She sighs as she speaks. "I thought it was going to be otherwise. But it will be all the better for Angus not to marry for some years to come. He has a great future before him; and a wife would really be an encumbrance. Young professional men should never marry; their circumstances keep on improving, but they can’t improve their wives." All this is very clear and sensible. It is not always that this person talks in so matter-of-fact a way. If, however, everything has turned out for the best, why this sudden asperity with which she adds— "But I did not expect it of Mary." And then again— "She might at least be civil to him." "She is not uncivil to him. She only avoids him." "I consider that her open preference for Howard Smith is just a little bit too ostentatious," she says, in rather an injured way. "Indeed, if it comes to that, she would appear to prefer the Laird to either of them. Any stranger would think she wanted to marry Denny-mains himself." "Has it ever occurred to you," is the respectful question, "that a young woman—say once in a century—may be in that state of mind in which she would prefer not to marry anybody?" Abashed? Not a bit of it! There is a calm air of superiority on her face: she is above trifles and taunts. "If unmarried women had any sense," she says, "that would be their normal state of mind." And she might have gone on enlarging on this text, only that at this moment Mary Avon comes along from the ladies’ cabin; and the morning greetings take place between the two women. Is it only a suspicion that there is a touch of coldness in the elder woman’s manner? Is it possible that her love for Mary Avon may be decreasing by ever so little a bit?