brigand colony near Gaeta; and if so, the coincidence would point to its having been founded, or at any rate occupied, and rechristened by the Mussulman fugitives from the Garigliano, and would be another link in the chain connecting the mediæval with the modern plague of Italy.
[Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers.]
MACLEOD OF DARE.
BY WILLIAM BLACK.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A DISCLOSURE.
And now he was all eagerness to brave the first dragon in his way — the certain opposition of this proud old lady at Castle Dare. No doubt she would stand aghast at the mere mention of such a thing; perhaps in her sudden indignation she might utter sharp words that would rankle afterwards in the memory. In any case he knew the struggle would be long, and bitter, and harassing; and he had not the skill of speech to persuasively bend a woman's will. There was another way — impossible, alas! — he had thought of. If only he could have taken Gertrude White by the hand — if only he could have led her up the hall, and presented her to his mother, and said, "Mother, this is your daughter: is she not fit to be the daughter of so proud a mother?" — the fight would have been over. How could any one withstand the appeal of those fearless and tender clear eyes?
Impatiently he waited for the end of dinner on the evening of his arrival; impatiently he heard Donald, the piper lad, play the brave salute — the wild, shrill yell overcoming the low thunder of the Atlantic outside; and he paid but little attention to the old and familiar "Cum-hadh na Cloinne." Then Hamish put the whiskey and the claret on the table and withdrew. They were left alone.
"And now, Keith," said his cousin Janet, with the wise gray eyes grown cheerful and kind, "you will tell us about all the people you saw in London; and was there much gayety going on? and did you see the queen at all? and did you give any fine dinners?"
"How can I answer you all at once, Janet?" said he, laughing in a somewhat nervous way. "I did not see the queen, for she was at Windsor; and I did not give any fine dinners, for it is not the time of year in London to give fine dinners; and indeed I spent enough money in that way when I was in London before. But I saw several of the friends who were very kind to me when I was in London in the summer. And do you remember, Janet, my speaking to you about the beautiful young lady — the actress — I met at the house of Colonel Ross of Duntorme?"
"Oh yes, I remember very well."
"Because," said he — and his fingers were rather nervous as he took out a package from his breast pocket — "I have got some photographs of her for the mother and you to see. But it is little of any one that you can understand from photographs. You would have to hear her talk, and see her manner, before you could understand why every one speaks so well of her, and why she is a friend with every one."
He had handed the packet to his mother, and the old lady had adjusted her eyeglasses, and was turning over the various photographs.
"She is very good-looking," said Lady Macleod. "Oh yes, she is very good-looking. And that is her sister?"
"Yes."
Janet was looking over them too.
"But where did you get all the photographs of her, Keith?" she said. "They are from all sorts of places — Scarborough, Newcastle, Brighton ——"
"I got them from herself," said he.
"Oh, do you know her so well?"
"I know her very well. She was the most intimate friend of the people whose acquaintance I first made in London," he said simply. And then he turned to his mother: "I wish photographs could speak, mother, for then you might make her acquaintance, and as she is coming to the Highlands next year ——"
"We have no theatre in Mull, Keith," Lady Macleod said, with a smile.
"But by that time she will not be an actress at all: did I not tell you that before?" he said eagerly. "Did I not tell you that? She is going to leave the stage — perhaps sooner or later, but certainly by that time; and when she comes to the Highlands next year with her father, she will be travelling just like any one else. And I hope, mother, you won't let them think that we Highlanders are less hospitable than the people of London."
He made the suggestion in an apparently careless fashion; but there was a
