You must have snatched away the apples of perpetual youth from the dragon who guarded them."

Lady Agnes smiled. What woman could resist so dear a compliment, doubly precious because her own son uttered it? Time had dealt gently with her. Life's autumn had dulled the rich auburn of her hair, it is true, but her face and figure were little altered since Coll had sported at her knee scarce five and twenty years before. Her son's words brought back to her memory the days when it was no mere compliment to call her beautiful, when she was the adored bride of Sir James MacDonald of Islay, when as yet none of those she loved had been hurried from her side by the swift, dark stream that runs between Earth and the Hereafter. She sighed softly, and turned to this the youngest and dearest of her children.

"Is Father O'Moore in Islay still?"

“Yes, and I know he has never regretted that you led him to alter his intention of going to Spain. But sometimes I have surprised him on Dunad battlements, straining his eyes towards these Irish shores. He says it is a weakness of his to long to return to his own."

"A weakness, Coll? It is the strength of most true Irish natures."

"He would not visit his own dear Ireland with us now because here there are many priests, and in Islay-none but him."

"

"Alas! what is one where twenty would be few enough? Little you know the Irish priest. St. Patrick's fire seems to dwell in him. He has the zeal of an apostle and the sinews of a giant. Nothing seems to tire him. Many an Islay to bless the day the Santa Anna' sought refuge in Rathlin. Everyone likes Father O'Moore, even those whose feet have ceased to follow the path their fathers trod." "And Angus?"

Catholic has cause

"

He is good friends with the priest ; but religion has become to him as a plaid to be wrapped close about him or thrown off as the season demands."

"That I feared. The pity of it is that religion, unlike a plaid, wears out quicker when left aside. Poor Angus, Islay is his god."

"Yes, and his religion is his clan's advancement."

Lady Clanconnell fell to weaving pictures of bygone days in Islay, and a silence came between them for a space. Then Coll spoke :

Grace grows more like a true MacDonald every year," he said, "despite her mother's Irish blood."

"Her mother's and her grand-mother's," Lady Agnes added: Sorley's wife was Irish, too. His grand-daughter is more Irish, far, than Scotch. Angus tells me she is like his daughter, Muriel."

"Like Muriel," her son broke in, knitting his brows, "like Muriel? Angus must be blind or else he has not looked at Grace. I see no likeness save in the colour of their hair. Why, Muriel's eyes are black as my own, and she is darker-skinned than Grace. Her cheeks are redder, too, and she has a haughty air that Grace has not. Sometimes I feel afraid of Muriel though I am her uncle."

Lady Clanconnell laughed, "I do not wonder, Coll, for I remember Muriel as a passionate self-willed child, as her father was before her. Angus gave me more trouble than all my other sons. You are more like Muriel's brother than her uncle. There is but three or four years difference in age between you and your haughty niece. She promised to be handsome?"

"Well, she has fulfilled the promise; but Grace is far more lovely."

"That I shall soon have an opportunity of proving when I go to Islay, if I can persuade your uncle to trust his darling to my care. What of Muriel's sister, Ella? She is fair as her mother was, is she not?"

'Yes, pale and fair and like to be the cause of many heartbreaks. For me, I never could be attracted by a fair pale woman. Angus chose such a one, and she tired soon of life. Give me a dark-haired beauty." He finished with sudden emphasis.

His mother smiled, "I would be well content did I know any that would please you," she said; and then, as if in answer to her words, there came into the room a girl in whose brown eyes, large and lustrous, the light of joyous triumph danced. With cheeks aglow she ran to Lady Agnes clapping her hands.

"Grandfather has consented, aunt. I am to go with you!" she cried, and then she turned her radiant face on Coll, who, with eager welcome made a place for her in the window-seat beside himself.

"So, my Irish cousin," he said, as she took possession of the cushion he had placed for her, you are to come to Scotland and see the Court and King?"

"Yes, and Islay afterwards, which pleases me quite as much as the thought of Holyrood."

Though Coll MacDonald did not say so, it pleased him even

better.

"Oh, Coll," she went on, "I am all impatience. How can I wait a month? It will seem a year in passing."

Lady Agnes smiled at the natural excitement of the girl, whose life had been spent for the most part in Rathlin. "Do not be afraid, Grace," she said, "the weeks will slip away right quickly."

Out in the bay the galley was bearing down in gallant style straight for Dunluce. Catching sight of it, Grace turned to Coll: "Will you take me with you to-morrow, cousin, to the wreck upon the Skerries. I heard you say that you might go." 'Yes, pretty one, I had a wish to see what your winter seas have left of a noble ship. Now that you wish it too, we'll make a purpose of it."

Then, said Lady Agnes, "I have heard naught of your doings in Rathlin this many a day, Grace. Have you yet forgiven Shane for his offence, or have you dismissed him?

Shane is in Rathlin still, aunt. How could I dismiss him? He made amends, and I forgave him. I would not be without him."

Coll had been toying abstractedly with a tress of her curling hair, winding it round and round his fingers. Now he let it go and took to stroking his beard instead, but his fingers were wound round with dark hairs, long and silky. Swiftly sundered fetters; and yet giants have been held in thrall by bonds as light. A woman's hair can bind a man as firmly as a cable. A cable was making for Coll MacDonald, silently, unseen, as a spider spins in the night. Already he felt himself bound hand and foot by those dark, shining tresses. Later, when he and Countess Clanconnell were alone again, he asked abruptly, "Mother, who is this Shane ?

Lady Agnes was busy at some lace work. "Shane ? questioned, glancing at her son.

she

'Yes, Shane, who lives in Rathlin and offends my cousin? The mother saw a flush of anger stealing over Coll's swarthy forehead.

"He meant no offence," she told him quietly; "but Grace chose to fancy an insult in some words he spoke. In that also she is like the MacDonalds-quick to see a slight where, oftentimes, none is intended. The MacDonald spirit is in Grace as well as Muriel, though it is seldom seen. the English if you would know how unlike

Talk to her about

herself she can

become. I believe she hates them even more bitterly than does her grandfather."

"Nay, mother, I would not remind her of all she suffered at their hands. I would rather help her to forget. But who is Shane?"

"Your Uncle Sorley's harper. He is old and almost blind, and can no longer follow his chief. Do you not remember him at my wedding-feast playing and singing, too? Now he plays for Grace and teaches her old songs and airs. It is hard for him, poor man, she added with a sigh, to live lonely in Rathlin, who has held whole camps enraptured with his music. But his is only the common fate of the aged-nothing more," and she bent over her work, ignorant what joy the tale of poor old Shane held for her son.

"Not a lover, then," Coll whispered to himself, as he went in search of the captain of his brother's galley to give instructions for the morrow's cruise: he was in high good humour that nothing could change or mar.

How you have grown," he exclaimed next day, when he had carried his cousin aboard the galley, "since the day I bore you on my shoulder in the wedding procession at Rathlin."

She laughed.

That was twelve years ago," she said, "and I was but a child. Could you carry me so far now, think you, Coll?"

He settled her into a chair he had sent on board for her special use.

"I could carry you for ever, pretty one, if you would but give me leave."

I

She laughed again. "Your arms are strong, cousin, but I fear even they would tire before the first hour were over. felt you tremble when you lifted me just now."

What, then? Were you afraid that I might fall? But Coll, meeting her steady gaze, smiled back at her and turned the talk to other things.

The galley was Sir Angus MacDonald's best, a large, seaworthy boat, in which he always travelled. It was decked over a space at the stern sufficient to form a small cabin where its owner might repose, if so inclined. Above the cabin was the steering platform, and it was here that the MacDonald cousins were seated.

Rapidly they skimmed across the bay, with a motion as smooth as the flight of the sea-birds which, soaring above them,

searched the waters eagle-eyed. The sea danced and shimmered in the sunlight.

A spell of silence that was not due to any beauty in the scene fell upon Coll MacDonald, and at the Skerries his eyes were more eager to follow his cousin in the springtime of her beauty than to look upon the wreckwork of the wintry seas. A few ribs there were, with keel and keelson-little more.

The galley faced about to where Dunluce stood out in lofty majesty, and the homeward run began.

Coll's eyes had been attracted by an ornament that held his cousin's cloak together. It was a circular brooch in heavy silver. An eagle's head with jewelled eyes formed the centre; the edge was a twisted ribbon, blue enamelled on silver, upon which, in quaint letters of gold, a motto shone.

"A pretty bauble you are wearing, Grace," he said. "Where got you it? Is it a trophy from one of Sorley's victories?"

"

A trophy! Oh, no," she caught her breath. "This brooch is something of a mystery. It is a memorial of that night of blood and horror wherein my mother perished. This ornament was found fastening a man's cloak about me when my boat reached shore. That time is almost all a blank to me. How often have I struggled to remember."

"But why, Grace; I ask you why? Surely that fearful siege and all connected with it is best forgotten. Fling that brooch into the sea, cousin. I will give you one instead of it. To me it glitters like an evil thing. I like not that it should rest upon a bosom so pure and fair."

The girl looked at him surprised. "Nay, Coll, it is not like you to be fanciful. To me this brooch "-she touched it gentlyserves as a relic of my mother. Grandfather says the lettering on it is English. Therefore I do not wear it in his presence, but I will never, never part with it."

The girl's voice had a melancholy cadence and her eyes were mournful as she gazed straight out to sea.

Coll hastily turned the subject. He was steering. Pointing northward he said, "See, Grace; Islay, the cradle of our kin, lies yonder. There, are caves more wonderful than any on this Antrim shore, and cliffs more awful, and smiling valleys, and a glorious strand where you could ride for mile on mile.

I have heard grandfather speak of all these things. How I long to visit your lovely island."

Coll suddenly and eagerly shifted the helm, and the galley's head went north