“You will be having Highlandmen for your forefathers?” she said, in an unexpectedly rich, powerful voice, full of the delightful Highland accent.
“Yes,” said Emily.
“And you will be Presbyterian?”
“Yes.”
“They will be the only decent things to be,” remarked Mrs. McIntyre in a tone of satisfaction. “And will you please be telling me what your name is? Emily Starr! That will be a fery pretty name. I will be telling you mine—it iss Mistress Margaret McIntyre. I am no common person—I am the woman who spanked the King.”
Again Emily, now thoroughly awake, thrilled with the story-teller’s instinct. But Ilse, awakening at the moment, gave a low exclamation of surprise. Mistress McIntyre lifted her head with a quite regal gesture.
“You will not be afraid of me, my dear. I will not be hurting you although I will be the woman who spanked the King. That iss what the people say of me—oh, yess—as I walk into the church. ‘She iss the woman who spanked the King.’”
“I suppose,” said Emily hesitatingly, “that we’d better be getting up.”
“You will not be rising until I haf told you my tale,” said Mistress McIntyre firmly. “I will be knowing as soon as I saw you that you will be the one to hear it. You will not be having fery much colour and I will not be saying that you are fery pretty—oh, no. But you will be having the little hands and the little ears—they will be the ears of the fairies, I am thinking. The girl with you there, she iss a fery nice girl and will make a fery fine wife for a handsome man—she is clefer, oh, yess—but you haf the way and it is to you I will be telling my story.”
“Let her tell it,” whispered Ilse. “I’m dying of curiosity to hear about the King being spanked.”
Emily, who realised that there was no “letting” in the case, only a matter of lying still and listening to what-
