" Looks can be deceiving." What does that mean?" What looks lovely on the outside isn't necessarily so on the inside." Ohhhhhhh! So you finally saw wh...t others could see, then?" Aye." Meanwhile, back in Portree, the lonely school mistress pines away waiting for her man to claim her." Is that what you are, a lonely school mistress, Ashley?" I've known you since we were mates in grade one, Archie. I don't know how many times we were married in my imagination." Let's see, you would have been about. I also started spending money. Credit cards. Store cards. Cheap loans to buy.. Stuff. Clothes. Shoes. A new kitchen. New Tv. Stuff..One day my boss Mrs Collins called me into her office. She said my work was crap and that things better change in the next couple of weeks. I broke down and told her everything. About feeling bad and about spending all the money. She let me talk and after a while she said get your coat and come with me. We left the office and went to a local wine bar. There we. The damned thing lit up the whole front yard and threw the car-ports contents into shadow. The old man across the street opened his door and started to,I believed, bitch me out. "Have a good night!" I told him and waved then went back to crash. Every morning and every night I checked to be sure things were ok. No-one was messing with their stuff and the timer on the flood-light worked perfectly. Three days later,just after dawn,on Saturday morning,I stepped out to get the paper and. He'd married a young commoner from the Free Marches in his later years, after his wife and son died, and then been widowed again when she died in childbirth. He was rarely seen, refusing to come to the Landsmeet and other events, and apparently had two daughters, about my age, neither of whom he let leave the castle. Of course this spurred a lot of rumours that he was bedding his own girls, but Theron suspected the truth was he was senile and kept his daughters close as nursemaids. No one had.