"We should never sicken of you, Isla. It is an ungracious thing to say, and the words come most ungraciously from your lips."
"But Malcolm does come every day, doesn’t he?"
Isla turned her quick, penetrating eyes full on Vivien’s glowing face, and she wondered whether the colour deepened at the question or whether she merely imagined that it did.
"He has been most kind. He does all sorts of ’cute things for us. We have scarcely missed Peter since he went away. You should hear my mother! Your brother has quite won her heart."
In the near distance she saw the figure of the stranger lady in the purple frock coming towards them, and she wondered what would happen. Vivien, too, saw it, and the smile deepened in her eyes.
"Who can this extraordinary female be? I met her as I came down, and she put me through a sort of catechism about the Glen, with special reference to Achree and the Mackinnons."
"I also met her," said Isla, "and she likewise catechized me. Some chance tourist staying at the Strathyre Hotel and hard up for something to occupy her time, I suppose."
"It struck me as more than that. And besides, the season for tourists is past," said Vivien shrewdly. "What garments! And what lack of fitness! I wonder now whether she thinks that we are badly dressed and that she could give us points? She has a complacent air, which is at once my despair and my envy."
Isla made no response. Again the chill premonition of coming evil crept about her heart--she felt that the purple-clad stranger was a menace to Achree.
"Now I wonder whether your brother saw her? I am sure she would stop him if she met him!"
"Malcolm!--but he is not down the Glen? I thought he was going to shoot over the Moor this morning. He certainly said something about it at breakfast."
"He was certainly down the Glen, my dear, for I met him on his grey cob. But where he is now I don’t know," said Vivien. "It would have interested her, I am sure, to have had speech with the actual Laird of Achree."
"What did she ask you?" asked Isla quickly.
Vivien’s colour rose this time without doubt, but she evaded the question.
"She is greatly concerned about the future of Achree, anyhow, so let us give her a civil good morning as we pass."