Hospital in the Highlands by Anne Vinton

dress?”
    “Maybe she took it with her,” Pixie said. “I lent her my weekend case this morning, first thing. She came into my room and asked for it, and she gave me a shilling. I couldn’t believe it!”
    “We’d better get ready, I suppose,” Meg decided, quite blithely. “I’m not letting Fay spoil my fun, if you are, Flo.”
    Flo hesitated only a moment over the bright length of tartan ribbon before taking it across her chest and fastening it both at waist and shoulder with the amber-headed pins enclosed in the package.
    Would Meg comment on the sash, she wondered?
    Meg did, but only briefly.
    “You look lovely, Flo, and I see you’re following this Highland fashion of wearing a tartan. It shows up against the white. Have I seen that dress before?” Without waiting for an answer she pirouetted and asked, “How do I look? Will I do?”
    “You look lovely, Meg, and so much younger!”
    Flo’s hand flew to her lips as she realized what she had said. “It’s all right,” grimaced the other. “I can take it. I was beginning to qualify for the old age pension, according to Pixie, but I want to look my real age tonight and—and forget some things.”
    Robert Strathallan arrived in good time and proved to be a fairy godfather, however.
    “I’ve come to ask a favor,” he said craftily, after observing Pixie’s dejected countenance. “I’ve just had television installed at Glen Lochallan, and my young brother declares it’s no fun watching it alone. I wondered if Miss Pixie could keep him company and have supper with him? My housekeeper will bring her home in the estate car whenever she feels tired.”
    “Oh, let me!” Pixie urged desperately. “Let me go, Meg! There’s always a good show on T.V. on Saturdays.”
    “Well, I—I think you can, dear,” Meg said, all of a flutter. “Thank you, Mr. Strathallan.”
    “Right!” So far he hadn’t appeared to glance in Flo’s direction. “If you and your sister will get in the back of the car, and the wee one in the front with me, we’ll drop her off first.”
    Flo had wanted him to notice her, had wanted him to see that she was wearing his tartan as requested. Huddled in the back of the car, however, she could only observe his apparent determination to engage Meg in conversation. He asked her how she was liking the Highlands, if she had ever danced a reel, and whether she had any views on man and the kilt? Meg was positively lilting as she answered him, and Flo—who should have been happy for her sister’s apparent success—could only wish that she could recapture the Robert who had so hesitantly, in the darkness last evening, asked her to make him proud by wearing his ribbon.
    Pixie was deposited in the big house on the hillside, and then the car descended the road to where the lights of the town made a necklace which hung above the dark waters of the loch.
    Colonel MacGregor’s house was low and rambling, but acquainted with every modern convenience, including central heating. It was still cold in the evenings in these parts, and the warmed air was welcome once wraps were discarded. Introductions were effected quickly and easily, and though everything about the occasion was well-bred, there was a certain amount of curiosity among the other guests to see the females who had come to live among them, and whose reputation for good looks had travelled ahead of them.
    Meg’s hair was fair and waved naturally: she wore it short, and the royal blue velvet dress she had on complemented her eyes. The eldest and the youngest both had their father’s colouring, but Fay had unusual eyes, green and catlike under long, golden eyelashes. Flo was brown-haired and brown-eyed, and didn’t expect to turn any heads this evening. Nevertheless she did, for her figure was small and exquisite: even fifteen-year-old Pixie’s proportions were more magnanimous than Flo’s, and they often joked about the matter, saying that “little sister” did not now apply to