"And then, if he were living here or in London, he might have got
tired, and he might have wished to go back to the Lewis and see all
the people he knew; and then he would come among them like a stranger,
and have no house to go to."

Then Lavender said, quite gently, "Do you think, Sheila, you will ever
tire of living in the South?"

The girl looked up quickly, and said, with a sort of surprised
questioning in her eyes, "No, not with you. But then we shall often go
to the Lewis?"

"Oh yes," her husband said, "as often as we can conveniently. But it
will take some time at first, you know, before you get to know all my
friends who are to be your friends, and before you get properly fitted
into our social circle. That will take you a long time, Sheila, and
you may have many annoyances or embarrassments to encounter; but you
won't be very much afraid, my girl?"

Sheila merely looked up to him: there was no fear in the frank, brave
eyes.

The first large town she saw struck a cold chill to her heart. On a
wet and dismal afternoon they sailed into Greenock. A heavy smoke hung
about the black building-yards and the dirty quays; the narrow and
squalid streets were filled with mud, and only the poorer sections of
the population waded through the mire or hung disconsolately about
the corners of the thoroughfares. A gloomier picture could not well
be conceived; and Sheila, chilled with the long and wet sail and
bewildered by the noise and bustle of the harbor, was driven to the