. White wings, a yachting romance . iss Avon showed that she could take care of herself. Whoeverheard Mary Avon laugh would have been assured. And she didlaugh a good deal; for the Laird, determined to amuse her, wasrelating a series of anecdotes, which he called good ones, andwhich seemed to have afforded great enjoyment to the people ofthe south of Scotland during the last century or so. There wasin especial a Highland steward of a steamer about whom a vastnumber of these stories was told; and if the point was at timesrather difficult to catch, who could fail to be tickled by theLairds own a
. White wings, a yachting romance . iss Avon showed that she could take care of herself. Whoeverheard Mary Avon laugh would have been assured. And she didlaugh a good deal; for the Laird, determined to amuse her, wasrelating a series of anecdotes, which he called good ones, andwhich seemed to have afforded great enjoyment to the people ofthe south of Scotland during the last century or so. There wasin especial a Highland steward of a steamer about whom a vastnumber of these stories was told; and if the point was at timesrather difficult to catch, who could fail to be tickled by theLairds own and obvious enjoyment ? There was another goodone. Miss Avon, he wouldsay; and then the bare memory ofthe great facetiousness of the anecdote would break out in suchhalf-suppressed guffaws as altogether to stop the current of thenarrative. Miss Avon laughed—we could not quite tell whetherit was at the Highland steward or the Laird—until the tears randown her cheeks. Dinner was scarcely thought of. It was adisgraceful MARY AVON. 13 There was another good one about Homesh, said the Laird,vainly endeavoring to suppress his laughter. He came up ondeck one enormously hot day, and looked ashore, and saw somecattle standing knee-deep in a pool of water. Says he—ha! ha!ha 1—ho ! ho ! ho !—says he—says he, MA wish ah wass a stott P—hel he! he!—ho! ho! ho! Of course we all laughed heartily, and Mary Avon more thanany of us; but if she had gone down on her knees and swornthat she knew what the point of the story was, we should nothave believed her. But the Laird was delighted. He went onwith his good ones. The mythical Homesh and his idiotic ad-ventures became portentous. The very servants could scarcelycarry the dishes straight. But in the midst of it all the Laird suddenly let his knife andfork drop on his plate, and stared. Then he quickly exclaimed: Bless me, lassie ! We saw in a second what had occasioned his alarm. The girlsface had become ghastly white;
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