son's eyes was in hers also. They watched me as we talked, and I found
myself telling her about my home as I had found myself telling him. He
had evidently talked to her about it himself. I had never met any one
who thought of Muircarrie as I did, but it seemed as if they who were
strangers were drawn by its wild, beautiful loneliness as I was.

I was happy. In my secret heart I began to ask myself if it could be
true that they made me feel a little as if I somehow belonged to some
one. I had always seemed so detached from every one. I had not been
miserable about it, and I had not complained to myself; I only accepted
the detachment as part of my kind of life.

Mr. MacNairn came into the garden later and several other people came
in to tea. It was apparently a sort of daily custom--that people who
evidently adored Mrs. MacNairn dropped in to see and talk to her every
afternoon. She talked wonderfully, and her friends' joy in her was
wonderful, too. It evidently made people happy to be near her. All she
said and did was like her light step and the movements of her delicate,
fine head--gracious and soft and arrestingly lovely. She did not let
me drift away and sit in a corner looking on, as I usually did among
strangers. She kept me near her, and in some subtle, gentle way made me
a part of all that was happening--the talk, the charming circle under
the spreading boughs of the apple-tree, the charm of everything.
Sometimes she would put out her exquisite, long-fingered hand and touch
me very lightly, and each time she did it I felt as if she had given me
new life.

There was an interesting elderly man who came among the rest of the
guests. I was interested in him even before she spoke to me of him. He
had a handsome, aquiline face which looked very clever. His talk was