Jess was slightly out of her element in a southern setting.

Her appropriate background was moorland and heather and gray loch, and driving clouds and a breeze with fine mist in it, that would make you want to wrap a plaid round your shoulders and turn to the luxury of a peat fire.

Quite unconsciously she suggested all these things.

Peachy once described her as a living incarnation of one of Scott's novels, for she was steeped in old traditions and legends and superstitions, and could tell tales in the gloaming that sent eerie shivers down the spines of her listeners, or would recite ballads with a swing that took one back to the days of wandering minstrels.

She was not a girl to make a fuss over anybody, and she did not greet Irene with the least effusion, but her plain "If you're a friend of Peachy's I'm glad to see you," was genuine, and better than any amount of gush.