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‘Where would you like us to take our seats, Joyce?’

‘Yonder, under the big ash-tree. It’s very bonnie there. You can see the Firth, and the ships sailing, and St. Margaret’s Hope; and you will look like the Queen herself, with her ladies, under the green canopy. Will I put the chair for you?’ cried the girl, in a Scotch confusion of verbs. She gave the Colonel one glance, and then hurried off, as if determined to distract her own attention. There were a few garden-chairs already scattered about under a clump of trees, which crowned a little platform of green—a very slight eminence, just enough to serve as a dais. She drew them into place with a rapid and cunning hand, and caught quickly at a Turkish rug of brilliant colour, which lay beside the tea-table, placing it in front of the presiding chair. Her movements were very swift and certain, and full of the grace of activity and capacity. Meantime the Colonel stood by the side of Mrs. Bellendean, surveying all.

‘She is excited,’ said the lady. ‘She is a strange girl: your question—which I have no doubt is a very simple question—has set her imagination going. See what a picture she has made! and she could sketch it too, if there was time. She is a sort of universal genius. And now she is all on fire, hoping to find out something.’