The ladies of the New House were not a little surprised the next day
when, as they sat waiting their guests, the door of the drawing-room
opened, and they saw the young highlanders enter in ordinary evening
dress. The plough-driving laird himself looked to Christina very
much like her patterns of Grosvenor-square. It was long since he had
worn his dress-coat, and it was certainly a little small for his
more fully developed frame, but he carried himself as straight as a
rush, and was nowise embarrassed with hands or feet. His hands were
brown and large, but they were well shaped, and not ashamed of
themselves, being as clean as his heart. Out of his hazel eyes,
looking in the candle-light nearly as dark as Mercy's, went an
occasional glance which an emergency might at once develop into a
look of command.

For Ian, he would have attracted attention anywhere, if only from
his look of quiet UNSELFNESS, and the invariable grace of the
movement that broke his marked repose; but his entertainers would
doubtless have honoured him more had they understood that his manner
was just the same and himself as much at home in the grandest court
of Europe.

The elder ladies got on together pretty well. The widow of the chief
tried to explain to her hostess the condition of the country and its
people; the latter, though knowing little and caring less about
relations beyond those of the family and social circle, nor feeling
any purely human responsibility, was yet interested enough to be
able to seem more interested than she was; while her sweet smile and
sweet manners were very pleasing to one who seldom now had the
opportunity of meeting a woman so much on her own level.