"Hold up your rod!" cries Peter, who saw that, taken by surprise, I was dropping the point of it. I raised it nearly upright, and this, with the friction of the reel, caused the fish, which had started to run after he felt the prick of the hook, to stop when he had gone half across the river, and make his leap or somersault.

"A twenty-pounder," said Mike.

When he leaped I ought to have dropped my point, so that he should not fall on the line, but I did nothing of the sort. I felt much as I once did in the woods of Wisconsin when a dozen deer suddenly jumped up from the long grass all about me, and I forgot that I had a gun in my hands. I had so much line out that, as it happened, no bad consequences followed, and the fish started for another run, at the end of which he made his leap, and coming down he struck my line with his tail, and was gone! Slowly and sadly I wound up my line, and found the gut broken close to the hook, and my beautiful "Fairy" vanished.

Then I looped on another insect phenomenon, and went on casting. Rodman, I perceived, was engaged with a salmon on the other bank. Presently I raise and hook another, but he directly shakes out the hook.

I move slowly down the pool, casting on each side—which I find is hard work for the back and shoulders—when, just opposite the big rock where Kingfisher raised his second fish yesterday, I feel a pluck at my fly and see a boil in the water. The robber runs away twenty yards and leaps, then turns short round and comes at me, as if to run down the canoe and drown us all. I wind up my line as fast as possible, but, alas! it comes in, yard after yard, so easily that I perceive all connection between the fish and me is at an end.

"He got slack line on you," said Peter.

By this time it was seven o'clock, and I returned home to breakfast with what appetite I had, a sadder if not a wiser man. Rodman brought in a nine-pound fish, and Kingfisher had three—thirteen, ten and twenty-one pounds. The Colonel had made a successful début with a fifteen-pound fish.

As we sat at breakfast Rodman asked, "How many salmon did you ever kill in a day, Kingfisher?"

Kingfisher. "I once killed thirty-three in one day: that was in the Mingan, a North Shore river, where the fish are very numerous, but small—not over ten pounds on an average. I knew a man once to kill forty-two in a day there, but he had extra strong tackle, with double and treble gut, and being a big strong fellow he used to drag them out by main force."

The Colonel. "If he had played his fish as you do here, there would not have been time in the longest day to kill forty-two. You average half an hour to a salmon, which would have taken twenty-one hours for his day's work."

Kingfisher. "True enough, but those little fellows in the Mingan can be killed in ten or fifteen minutes."

Rodman. "And what was the longest time you ever spent in killing a salmon?"

Kingfisher. "Once fishing in the Moisie, where the fish are very large, I hooked a salmon at five in the morning and lost him at six in the evening: he was on for thirteen hours, but he sulked at the bottom most of the time, and I never saw him at all."

Scribe. "Perhaps it was no fish at all."

Kingfisher. "It might have been a seal, but Sir Edmund Head, who was with me, and I myself, thought it was a very large salmon and hooked foul, so that I could not drown him. I think from his play that it was a salmon: he ran many times round the pool, but swam deep, as heavy fish are apt to do. How do you like the cooking of this salmon?"

Scribe. "I think it is perfect. The salmon have been growing better ever since we entered the Dominion, but we have reached perfection now. Is this the Tweedside method?"

Kingfisher. "It is. Put your fish in boiling water, well salted, boil a minute to a pound, and when done serve it with some of the water it was boiled in for sauce. You can't improve a fresh-caught salmon with Worcestershire or Harvey."

The day proving very hot, we stayed in camp till evening, when Kingfisher and the others went to the nearest pool for salmon, and I went trout-fishing to the little rapids and took a dozen of moderate size. Kingfisher brought in four fish—seven, ten, seventeen and eighteen pounds; Rodman got two—twelve and sixteen pounds; the Colonel failed to secure one which he had hooked.

July 6. To-day Kingfisher and the Colonel take the Upper Indian-house Pool, and Rodman and I go to the Patapedia. We start at 4 a. m., so as to get the early fishing, always the best. It takes an hour to pole up the three miles, the current being very strong, and when we arrive the pool is yet white with the morning mist. It is a long smooth rapid, with a channel on one side running close to the high gravelly bank, evidently cut away by spring freshets. On the other side comes in a rushing brook or small river called the Patapedia. Rodman took the head of the pool, and I the middle ground. I fished down some fifty yards without moving anything, when, as I was bringing home my fly after a cast, it was taken by a good fish. Away he went with a wicked rush full forty yards, in spite of all I could do, then made a somersault, showing us his huge proportions. A second and a third time he leaped, and then darted away, I urging my men to follow with the canoe, which they did, but not quickly enough. This was a terribly strong fish: though I was giving him all the spring of the rod, I could not check him. When he stopped running he began to shake his head, or, as the English fishing-books say, "to jigger." In two minutes he jiggered out the hook and departed.

I had changed rods and lines to-day, having borrowed one from Rodman—a Montreal rod, larger and stiffer than the other: although heavier, I could cast better with it than with the Irish rod. Unluckily, there were only about seventy yards of line on the reel, and the next fish I hooked proved to be the most furious of all, for he first ran out forty yards of line, and before I could get much of it wound up again, he made another and a longer run, taking out all my line to the end, where it was tied to the reel: of course he broke loose, taking away my fly and two feet of casting-line. By this time the sun was high in the heavens, and we returned to camp—Rodman with a salmon of seventeen pounds and a grilse of five pounds.

A salmon has properly four stages of existence. The first is as a "parr," a small bright-looking fish, four or five inches long, with dark-colored bars across the sides and a row of red spots. It is always found in the fresh water, looks something like a trout, and will take a fly or bait eagerly. The second stage is when it puts on the silvery coat previous to going to sea for the first time: it is then called a "smolt," and is from six to eight inches long, still living in the river where it was hatched. In the third stage, after its return from the sea to its native river, it is called a "grilse," and weighs from three to six pounds. It can be distinguished from a salmon, even of the same size, by its forked tail (that of the salmon being square) and the slight adhesion of the scales. The grilse is wonderfully active and spirited, and will often give as much play as a salmon of three times his size. After the second visit of the fish to the sea he returns a salmon, mature, brilliant and vigorous, and increases in weight every time he revisits the ocean, where most of his food is found, consisting of small fish and crustacea.

As we dropped down the stream toward the camp we saw a squirrel swimming across the river. Paddling toward him, Peter reached out his pole, and the squirrel took refuge upon it and was lifted on board—a pretty little creature, gray and red, about half the size of the common gray squirrel of the States. He ran about the canoe so fearlessly that I think he must have been unacquainted with mankind. He skipped over us as if we had been logs, with his bead-like eyes almost starting from his head with astonishment, and then mounting the prow of the canoe,

Presently we paddled toward the shore, and he jumped off and disappeared in the bushes, with a fine story to tell to his friends of having been ferried across by strange and friendly monsters. Kingfisher got eleven salmon to-day, and the Colonel one.

July 7 was Sunday, and the pools were rested, as well as ourselves, from the fatigues of the week. Kingfisher brought out his materials and tied a few flies, such as he thought would suit the river. This he does very neatly, and I think he belongs to the old school of anglers, who believe in a great variety of flies.

It may not perhaps be generally known that there are two schools among fly-fishers. The "formalists" or entomologists hold that the natural flies actually on the water should be studied and imitated by the fly-maker, down to the most minute particulars. This is the old theory, and whole libraries have been written to prove and illustrate it, from the Boke of St. Albans, written by the Dame Juliana Berners in 1486, down to the present day. The number of insects which we are directed to imitate is legion, and the materials necessary for their manufacture are of immense variety and difficult to procure. These teachers are the conservatives, who adhere to old tradition. On the other side are the "colorists," who think color everything, and form nothing: they are but a section, though an increasing one, of the fly-fishing community. Their theory is, that all that a fish can distinguish through the watery medium is the size and color of the fly. These are the radicals, and they go so far as to discard the thousand different flies described in the books, and confine themselves to half a dozen typical varieties, both in salmon- and trout-fishing. Where learned doctors disagree, I, for one, do not venture to decide; but when I remember that on some days no fly in my book would tempt the trout, and that at other times they would rise at any or all flies, it seems to me that the principal question is, Are the trout feeding or not? If they are, they will take almost anything; if not, the most skillful hand may fail of tempting them to rise. As to salmon, I think no one will pretend that the salmon-flies commonly used are like anything in Nature, and it is difficult to understand what the keen-eyed salmon takes them for. Until, then, we can put ourselves in the place of the salmon and see with his eyes, we must continue to evolve our flies from our own consciousness. My small experience seems to show me that in a salmon-fly color is the main thing to be studied.

But to return to Kingfisher, who has been all this time softening some silk-worm gut in his mouth, and now says in a thick voice, "Do you know, colonel, I lost my chance of a wife once in this way?"

Colonel. "How was that? Did you steal some of the lady's feathers?"

Kingfisher. "No, it was in this way: I was a lad of about seventeen, but I had a sweetheart. I was at college, and had but little time for fishing, of which I was as fond as I am now. One evening I was hastening toward the river with my rod, with my mouth full of flies and gut, which I was softening as I am now. Turning the corner of a narrow lane, I met my beloved and her mother, both of whom were precise persons who could not take a joke. Of course I had to stop and speak to them, but my mouth was full of hooks and gut, and the hooks stuck in my tongue, and I only mumbled. They looked astonished. Perhaps they thought I was drunk: anyway, the young lady asked what was the matter. 'My m—m—mouth is full of guts,' was all that I could say; and the girl would never speak to me afterward."

Rodman. "That was lucky, for you got a wife better able to bear with your little foibles."

Kingfisher. "I did, sir."

July 8. Rodman and I were to take the Upper Indian-house Pool to-day, the others going to the Patapedia. Kingfisher and I exchanged Indians: he, having a man who was a better fisherman than either of mine, kindly lent him to me, that I might have a better chance of killing a salmon, I being the only one of the party who had not succeeded in doing so. I found in my book a casting-line of double gut: it was only two yards long, but I thought I had better trust to it than the single gut which the fish had been breaking for me the last two days. I also found in my book a few large showy salmon-flies tied on double gut: with these I started, determined to do or die. I was on the pool at 5 a. m., and had raised two salmon, and caught two large trout, which often took our flies when we were casting for bigger fish. At 6.30 I raised and hooked a big fish, which ran out twenty yards of line, and then stopped. I determined to try the waiting method this time, and not to lose my fish by too much haste; so I let him have his own way, only holding him with a tight hand. Joe, I soon saw, understood his part of the business: he kept the canoe close behind the fish, so that I should always have a reserve of line upon my reel. My salmon made two runs without showing himself: he pulled hard, and was evidently a strong fish. He now tried to work himself across the river into the heavy current. I resisted this, but to no purpose: I could not hold him, and I thought he was going down the little rapid, where I could not have followed, when he steered down through the still and deep water, and went to the bottom near the camp. There he stayed, sulking, for more than an hour, and I could not start him. The cook came down from his fire to see the conflict; Joe lighted his pipe and smoked it out; old Captain Merrill, who lived on the opposite bank, came out and hailed me, "Reckon you've got a big one this time, judge;" and still my line pointed to the bottom of the river, and my hands grew numb with holding the rod.

Suddenly, up from the depths came the salmon, and made off at full speed down the river, making his first leap as he went, which showed him to be a twenty-pounder at least. We followed with the canoe. On the west side of the island ran the main channel, wide and deep, gradually increasing in swiftness till it became a boiling torrent. Into this my fish plunged, in spite of all my resistance, and all we could do was to follow. But I soon lost track of him and control of him: sometimes he was ahead, and I could feel him; sometimes he was alongside, and the line was slack and dragging on the water, most dangerous of positions; sometimes the canoe went fastest, and the salmon was behind me. My men handled the canoe admirably, and brought me through safe, fish and all; for when we emerged into the still pool below, and I was able to reel up, I felt him still on the hook, but unsubdued, for he made another run of thirty yards, and leaped twice.

"That's good," said Joe: "that will tire him."

For the first two hours of the struggle the fish had been quiet, and so had saved his strength, but now he began to race up and down the pool, trying for slack line. But Joe followed him up sharply and kept him well in hand. Now the fish began to jigger, and shook his head so hard and so long that I thought something must give way—either my line or his spinal column. After about an hour of this kind of work I called to Rodman, who was fishing not far off, and asked him to come alongside and play my fish for a few minutes, so that I might rest my hands, which were cramped with holding the rod so long; which he did, and gave me fifteen minutes' rest, when I resumed the rod. The fish now seemed somewhat spent, for he came to the surface and flounced about, so that we could see his large proportions. Still, I could not get him alongside, and I told Joe to try to paddle up to him, but he immediately darted away from us and headed up stream, keeping a parallel course about fifty feet off, so that we could see him perfectly through the clear water. After many efforts, however, he grew more tame, and Louis paddled the canoe very carefully up to him, while Joe stood watching his chance with the gaff, which he put deep in the water. At last I got the fish over it, when with a sudden pull the gaff was driven into him just behind the dorsal fin; but he was so strong that I thought he would have taken the man out of the canoe. The water flew in showers, and the big salmon lay in the bottom of the boat!

I could hardly believe my eyes. That tremendous creature caught with a line no thicker than a lady's hair-pin! I looked at my watch: it was eleven o'clock, just four hours and a half. "Well, I have done enough for to-day, Joe: let us go home to breakfast." Arrived at the camp, we weighed the salmon and measured him—twenty-four pounds, and forty inches long—a male fish, fresh run from the sea, the strongest and most active of his kind. It had been my luck to hook these big ones: I wished that my first encounters should be with fish of ten or twelve pounds. Rodman came in with two—fourteen and sixteen pounds.

That evening I went again to the same pool, and soon hooked another good fish with the same fly; but though he was nearly as large as the first, weighing twenty-two pounds, I killed him in thirty minutes. He fought hard from the very first, running and vaulting by turns without any stop, so that he soon tired himself out. Rodman got another this evening, and Kingfisher brought seven from the Patapedia, and the Colonel one. Thirteen is our score to-day.

July 9. Rodman and I went this morning to the Patapedia, but raised no salmon. Either some one had been netting the pool that night, or Kingfisher had killed all the fish yesterday. I got a grilse of four pounds, which made a smart fight for fifteen minutes, and Rodman hooked another, but lost him. That evening we went again to the pool, and I killed a small but very active salmon of nine pounds, which fought me nearly an hour: Rodman got a grilse of five pounds. Strange to say, neither Kingfisher nor the Colonel killed a fish to-day, so that I was for once "high line."

Having killed four salmon, I concluded to retire. I found the work too hard, and determined to go to Dalhousie and try the sea-trout fishing in that vicinity. So, after an hour's fly-fishing at the mouth of the brook opposite our camp, in which I got a couple of dozen, hooking two at a cast twice, and twice three at a cast, I started at seven o'clock on the 10th, and ran down with the current and paddles forty miles to Fraser's in seven hours—the same distance which it took us two days and a half to make going up stream.

Of all modes of traveling, to float down a swift river in a bark canoe is the most agreeable; and when paddled by Indians the canoe is the perfection of a vessel for smooth-water navigation. Where there are three inches of water she can go—where there is none, a man can carry her round the portage on his back. Her buoyancy enables her to carry a heavy load, and, though frail, the elasticity of her material admits of many a blow and pinch which would seriously damage a heavier vessel. The rifle and axe of the backwoodsman, the canoe and the weapons of the Indian, are the result of long years of experiment, and perfectly meet their necessities.

The rest of the party remained and fished five days more, making ten days in all, and the score was eighty-five salmon and five grilse, the united weight of which was fourteen hundred and twenty-three pounds. The salmon averaged sixteen and a half pounds each: the three largest weighed thirty, thirty, and thirty-three pounds. Nearly two-thirds of the whole were taken by Kingfisher, and our average for three rods was three fish per day each.

It is asserted by Norris in the American Angler's Book that the salmon of the American rivers are smaller than those of Europe, that in the Scottish rivers many are still taken of twenty and twenty-five pounds weight, and that on this side of the Atlantic it is as rare to take them with the rod over fifteen pounds. If this statement was correct when Norris wrote, ten years ago, then the Canadian rivers have improved under the system of protection, for, as above stated, our catch in the Restigouche averaged over sixteen pounds, and nearly one-third of our fish were of twenty pounds or over.

Yarrel, in his work on British fishes, says that in 1835 he saw 10 salmon in the London market weighing from 38 to 40 pounds each. Sir Humphry Davy is said to have killed a salmon in the Tweed that weighed 42 pounds: this was about 1825. The largest salmon ever seen in London was sold there in 1821: it weighed 83 pounds. But with diminished numbers the size of the salmon in Scottish waters has also diminished. In the Field newspaper for August and September, 1872, I find the following report of the fishing in some of those rivers: The Severn—average size of catch (considered very large) is 16 pounds; fish of 30, 40 and 50 pounds have been taken. The Tay—one rod, one day in August, 7 fish; average weight, 18 pounds. The Tweed—two rods, one day's fishing, 12 fish; average, 20 pounds. The Eaine—fish run from 12 to 20 pounds.

In Lloyd's book on the Sports of Norway we find the following reports of the salmon-fishing in that country, where the fish are supposed to be very large: In the river Namsen, Sir Hyde Parker in 1836 killed in one day 10 salmon weighing from 30 to 60 pounds. This is considered the best of the Norwegian rivers, both for number and size of fish. The Alten—Mr. Brettle in 1838 killed in fifteen days 194 fish; average, 15 pounds; largest fish, 40 pounds. Sir Charles Blois, the most successful angler, in the season of 1843 killed in the Alten 368 fish; average, 15 pounds: largest fish, 50 pounds. The Steenkjaw—one rod killed in twenty days 80 salmon; average, 14 pounds. The Mandall—one rod killed 35 fish in one day. The Nid—two rods killed in one day 19 fish; largest fish, 38 pounds.

The following records are from Canadian rivers prior to 1871: Moisie—two rods in twenty-five days, 318 fish; average 15-1/7 pounds; three largest, 29, 29 and 32 pounds. Godbout—three rods in forty days, 194 fish; average, 11-1/8 pounds; three largest, 18, 19 and 20 pounds. St. John—two rods in twenty-two days, 199 fish; average, 10 pounds. Nipisiquit—two rods, 76 fish; average, 9-1/2 pounds. Mingan—three rods in thirty-two days, 218 fish; average, 10-1/5 pounds. Restigouche, 1872—three rods in ten days, 85 fish; average, 16-1/2 pounds; three largest, 30, 30 and 33 pounds.

The greatest kill of salmon ever recorded was that of Allan Gilmour, Esq., of Ottawa, who killed in the Godbout in 1867, in one day, 46 salmon, averaging 11-1/2 pounds, or one fish about every fifteen minutes.

The largest salmon taken with the fly in an American river have been out of the Grand Cascapediac, on the north shore of the Bay of Chaleur. In 1871, by the government report, there were 44 salmon killed with the fly—two of 40 pounds, one of 38, and four others of over 30 pounds; average weight, 23 pounds. In the same river in 1872, Mr. John Medden of Toronto, with three other rods, killed 2 fish of 45 pounds, 4 of between 40 and 45, 5 of between 35 and 40 pounds, 7 of between 30 and 35 pounds, 15 of between 25 and 30 pounds, 16 of between 20 and 25, besides smaller ones not enumerated.

From these data it would seem that the average size of the Canadian salmon is as great as those of Norway, and very nearly equal to those of the Scottish rivers; while the number of fish taken in a day in the Canadian rivers, particularly in those on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, surpasses the best catch of either the Scottish or Norwegian rivers.

S. C. Clarke.

A PRINCESS OF THULE.

As often as not he borrowed his fancies and opinions from Edward Ingram himself, who was amused and gratified at the same time to find his humdrum notions receive a dozen new lights and colors when transferred to the warmer atmosphere of his friend's imagination. Ingram would even consent to receive from his younger companion advice, impetuously urged and richly illustrated, which he had himself offered in simpler terms months before. At this very moment he could see that much of Lavender's romantic conceptions of Sheila's character was only an exaggeration of some passing hints he, Ingram, had dropped as the Clansman was steaming into Stornoway. But then they were ever so much more beautiful. Ingram held to his conviction that he himself was a distinctly commonplace person. He had grown reconciled to the ordinary grooves of life. But young Lavender was not commonplace: he fancied he could see in him an occasional flash of something that looked like genius; and many and many a time, in regarding the brilliant and facile powers, the generous impulses and the occasional ambitions of his companion, he wondered whether these would ever lead to anything in the way of production, or even of consolidation of character, or whether would merely remain the passing sensations of an indifferent idler. Sometimes, indeed, he devoutly wished that Lavender had been born a stonemason.

But all these pleasant and graceful qualities, which had made the young man an agreeable companion, were a serious danger now; for was it not but too probable that Sheila, accustomed to the rude and homely ways of the islanders, would be attracted and pleased and fascinated by one who had about him so much of a soft and southern brightness with which she was wholly unfamiliar? This open-hearted frankness of his placed all his best qualities in the sunshine, as it were: she could not fail to see the singular modesty and courtesy of his bearing toward women, his gentle manners, his light-heartedness, his passionate admiration of the self-sacrifice of others, and his sympathy with their sufferings. Ingram would not have minded much if Lavender alone had been concerned in the dilemma now growing imminent: he would have left him to flounder out of it as he had got out of previous ones. But he had been surprised and pained, and even frightened, to detect in Sheila's manner some faint indications—so faint that he was doubtful what construction to put on them—of a special interest in the young stranger whom he had brought with him to Borva.

What could he do in the matter, supposing his suspicions were correct? Caution Sheila?—it would be an insult. Warn Mackenzie?—the King of Borva would fly into a passion with everybody concerned, and bring endless humiliation on his daughter, who had probably never dreamed of regarding Lavender except as a chance acquaintance. Insist upon Lavender going south at once?—that would merely goad the young man into obstinacy. Ingram found himself in a grievous difficulty, afraid to say how much of it was of his own creation. He had no selfish sentiments of his own to consult: if it were to become evident that the happiness of Sheila and of his friend depended on their marrying each other, he was ready to forward such a project with all the influence at his command. But there were a hundred reasons why he should dread such a marriage. He had already mentioned several of them to Lavender in trying to dissuade the young man from his purpose. A few days had passed since then, and it was clear that Lavender had abandoned all notion of fulfilling those resolutions he had vaguely formed. But the more Ingram thought over the matter, and the further he recalled all the ancient proverbs and stories about the fate of intermeddlers, the more evident it became to him that he could take no immediate action in the affair. He would trust to the chapter of accidents to save Sheila from what he considered a disastrous fate. Perhaps Lavender would repent. Perhaps Mackenzie, continually on the watch for small secrets, would discover something, and bid his daughter stay in Borva while his guests proceeded on their tour through Lewis. In any case, it was not at all certain that Lavender would be successful in his suit. Was the heart of a proud-spirited, intelligent and busily-occupied girl to be won in a matter of three weeks or a month? Lavender would go south, and no more would be heard of it.

This tour round the island of Lewis, however, was not likely to favor much any such easy escape from the difficulty. On a certain morning the larger of Mr. Mackenzie's boats carried the holiday party away from Borva; and even at this early stage, as they sat at the stern of the heavy craft, Lavender had arrogated to himself the exclusive right of waiting upon Sheila. He had constituted himself her companion in all their excursions about Borva which they had undertaken, and now, on this longer journey, they were to be once more thrown together. It did seem a little hard that Ingram should be relegated to Mackenzie and his theories of government; but did he not profess to prefer that? Like most men who have got beyond five-and-thirty, he was rather proud of considering himself an observer of life. He stood aside as a spectator, and let other people, engaged in all manner of eager pursuits, pass before him for review. Toward young folks, indeed, he assumed a good-naturedly paternal air, as if they were but as shy-faced children to be humored. Were not their love-affairs a pretty spectacle? As for himself, he was far beyond all that. The illusions of love-making, the devotion and ambition and dreams of courtship, were no longer possible to him, but did they not constitute on the whole a beautiful and charming study, that had about it at times some little touches of pathos? At odd moments, when he saw Sheila and Lavender walking together in the evening, he was himself half inclined to wish that something might come of the young man's determination. It would be so pleasant to play the part of a friendly counselor, to humor the follies of the young folks, to make jokes at their expense, and then, in the midst of their embarrassment and resentment, to go forward and pet them a little, and assure them of a real and earnest sympathy.

"Your time is to come," Lavender said to him suddenly after he had been exhibiting some of his paternal forbearance and consideration: "you will get a dreadful twist some day, my boy. You have been doing nothing but dreaming about women, but some day or other you will wake up to find yourself captured and fascinated beyond anything you have ever seen in other people, and then you will discover what a desperately real thing it is."

Ingram had a misty impression that he had heard something like this before. Had he not given Lavender some warning of the same kind? But he was so much accustomed to hear those vague repetitions of his own remarks, and was, on the whole, so well pleased to think that his commonplace notions should take root and flourish in this goodly soil, that he never thought of asking Lavender to quote his authority for those profound observations on men and things.

"Now, Miss Mackenzie," said the young man as the big boat was drawing near to Callernish, "what is to be our first sketch in Lewis?"

"The Callernish Stones, of course," said Mackenzie himself: "it iss more than one hass come to the Lewis to see the Callernish Stones."

Lavender had promised to the King of Borva a series of water-color drawings of Lewis, and Sheila was to choose the subjects from day to day. Mackenzie was gratified by this proposal, and accepted it with much magnanimity; but Sheila knew that before the offer was made Lavender had come to her and asked her if she cared about sketches, and whether he might be allowed to take a few on this journey and present them to her. She was very grateful, but suggested that it might please her papa if they were given to him. Would she superintend them, then, and choose the topics for illustration? Yes, she would do that; and so the young man was furnished with a roving commission.

He brought her a little sepia sketch of Borvabost, its huts, its bay, and its upturned boats on the beach. Sheila's expressions of praise, the admiration and pleasure that shone in her eyes, would have turned any young man's head. But her papa looked at the picture with a critical eye, and remarked, "Oh yes, it is ferry good, but it is not the color of Loch Roag at all. It is the color of a river when there is a flood of rain. I have neffer at all seen Loch Roag a brown color—neffer at all."

It was clear, then, that the subsequent sketches could not be taken in sepia, and so Lavender proposed to make a series of pencil-drawings, which could be washed in with color afterward. There was one subject, indeed, which since his arrival in Lewis he had tried to fix on paper by every conceivable means in his power, and that was Sheila herself. He had spoiled innumerable sheets of paper in trying to get some likeness of her which would satisfy himself, but all his usual skill seemed somehow to have gone from him. He could not understand it. In ordinary circumstances he could have traced in a dozen lines a portrait that would at least have shown a superficial likeness: he could have multiplied portraits by the dozen of old Mackenzie or Ingram or Duncan, but here he seemed to fail utterly. He invited no criticism, certainly. These efforts were made in his own room, and he asked no one's opinion as to the likeness. He could, indeed, certify to himself that the drawing of the features was correct enough. There was the sweet and placid forehead with its low masses of dark hair; there the short upper lip, the finely-carved mouth, the beautifully-rounded chin and throat; and there the frank, clear, proud eyes, with their long lashes and highly-curved eyebrows. Sometimes, too, a touch of color added warmth to the complexion, put a glimmer of the blue sea beneath the long black eyelashes, and drew a thread of scarlet round the white neck. But was this Sheila? Could he take this sheet of paper to his friends in London and say, Here is the magical princess whom I hope to bring to you from the North, with all the glamour of the sea around her? He felt instinctively that there would be an awkward pause. The people would praise the handsome, frank, courageous head, and look upon the bit of red ribbon round the neck as an effective artistic touch. They would hand him back the paper with a compliment, and he would find himself in an agony of unrest because they had misunderstood the portrait, and seen nothing of the wonder that encompassed this Highland girl as if with a garment of mystery and dreams.

So he tore up portrait after portrait—more than one of which would have startled Ingram by its truth—and then, to prove to himself that he was not growing mad, he resolved to try a portrait of some other person. He drew a head of old Mackenzie in chalk, and was amazed at the rapidity and facility with which he executed the task. Then there could be no doubt as to the success of the likeness nor as to the effect of the picture. The King of Borva, with his heavy eyebrows, his aquiline nose, his keen gray eyes and flowing beard, offered a fine subject; and there was something really royal and massive and noble in the head that Lavender, well satisfied with his work, took down stairs one evening. Sheila was alone in the drawing-room, turning over some music.

"Miss Mackenzie," he said rather kindly, "would you look at this?"

Sheila turned round, and the sudden light of pleasure that leapt to her face was all the praise and all the assurance he wanted. But he had more than that. The girl was grateful to him beyond all the words she could utter; and when he asked her if she would accept the picture, she thanked him by taking his hand for a moment, and then she left the room to call in Ingram and her father. All the evening there was a singular look of happiness on her face. When she met Lavender's eyes with hers there was a frank and friendly look of gratitude ready to reward him. When had he earned so much before by a simple sketch? Many and many a portrait, carefully executed and elaborately framed, had he presented to his lady friends in London, to receive from them a pretty note and a few words of thanks when next he called. Here with a rough chalk sketch he had awakened an amount of gratitude that almost surprised him in the most beautiful and tender soul in the world; and had not this princess among women taken his hand for a moment as a childlike way of expressing her thanks, while her eyes spoke more than her lips? And the more he looked at those eyes, the more he grew to despair of ever being able to put down the magic of them in lines and colors.

At length Duncan got the boat into the small creek at Callernish, and the party got out on the shore. As they were going up the steep path leading to the plain above a young girl met them, who looked at them in rather a strange way. She had a fair, pretty, wondering face, with singularly high eyebrows and clear, light-blue eyes.

"How are you, Eily?" said Mackenzie as he passed on with Ingram.

But Sheila, on making the same inquiry, shook hands with the girl, who smiled in a confidential way, and, coming quite close, nodded and pointed down to the water's edge.

"Have you seen them to-day, Eily?" said Sheila, still holding the girl by the hands, and looking at the fair, pretty, strange face.

"It wass sa day before yesterday," she answered in a whisper, while a pleased smile appeared on her face, "and sey will be here sa night."

"Good-bye, Eily: take care you don't stay out at night and catch cold, you know," said Sheila; and then, with another little nod and a smile, the young girl went down the path.

"It is Eily-of-the-Ghosts, as they call her," said Sheila to Lavender as they went on: "the poor thing fancies she sees little people about the rocks, and watches for them. But she is very good and quiet, and she is not afraid of them, and she does no harm to any one. She does not belong to the Lewis—I think she is from Islay—but she sometimes comes to pay us a visit at Borva, and my papa is very kind to her."

"Mr. Ingram does not appear to know her: I thought he was acquainted with every one in the island," said Lavender.

"She was not here when he has been in the Lewis before," said Sheila; "but Eily does not like to speak to strangers, and I do not think you could get her to speak to you if you tried."

Lavender had paid but little attention to the "false men" of Callernish when first he saw them, but now he approached the long lines of big stones up on this lonely plateau with a new interest; for Sheila had talked to him about them many a time in Borva, and had asked his opinion about their origin and their age. Was the central circle of stones an altar, with the other series marking the approaches to it? Or was it the grave of some great chieftain, with the remaining stones indicating the graves of his relations and friends? Or was it the commemoration of some battle in olden times, or the record of astronomical or geometrical discoveries, or a temple once devoted to serpent-worship, or what? Lavender, who knew absolutely nothing at all about the matter, was probably as well qualified as anybody else to answer these questions, but he forbore. The interest, however, that Sheila showed in such things he very rapidly acquired. When he came to see the rows of stones a second time he was much impressed by their position on this bit of hill overlooking the sea. He sat down on his camp-stool with the determination that, although he could not satisfy Sheila's wistful questions, he would present her with some little sketch of these monuments and their surroundings which might catch up something of the mysterious loneliness of the scene.

He would not, of course, have the picture as it then presented itself. The sun was glowing on the grass around him, and lighting up the tall gray pillars of stone with a cheerful radiance. Over there the waters of Loch Roag were bright and blue, and beyond the lake the undulations of moorland were green and beautiful, and the mountains in the south grown pale as silver in the heat. Here was a pretty young lady, in a rough blue traveling-dress and a hat and feather, who was engaged in picking up wild-flowers from the warm heath. There was a gentleman from the office of the Board of Trade, who was sitting on the grass, nursing his knees and whistling. From time to time the chief figure in the foreground was an elderly gentleman, who evidently expected that he was going to be put into the picture, and who was occasionally dropping a cautious hint that he did not always wear this rough-and-ready sailor's costume. Mackenzie was also most anxious to point out to the artist the names of the hills and districts lying to the south of Loch Roag, apparently with the hope that the sketch would have a certain topographical interest for future visitors.

No: Lavender was content at that moment to take down the outlines of the great stones and the configuration of lake and hill beyond, but by and by he would give another sort of atmosphere to this wild scene. He would have rain and darkness spread over the island, with the low hills in the south grown desolate and remote, and the waters of the sea covered with gloom. No human figure should be visible on this remote plain, where these strange memorials had stood for centuries, exposed to western gales and the stillness of the winter nights and the awful silence of the stars. Would not Sheila, at least, understand the bleakness and desolation of the picture? Of course her father would like to have everything blue and green. He seemed a little disappointed when it was clear that no distant glimpse of Borva could be introduced into the sketch. But Sheila's imagination would be captured by this sombre picture, and perhaps by and by in some other land, amid fairer scenes and in a more generous climate, she might be less inclined to hunger for the dark and melancholy North when she looked on this record of its gloom and its sadness.

"Iss he going to put any people in the pictures?" said Mackenzie in a confidential whisper to Ingram.

Ingram got up from the grass, and said with a yawn, "I don't know. If he does, it will be afterward. Suppose we go along to the wagonette and see if Duncan has brought everything up from the boat?"

The old man seemed rather unwilling to be cut out of this particular sketch, but he went nevertheless; and Sheila, seeing the young man left alone, and thinking that not quite fair, went over to him and asked if she might be permitted to see as much as he had done.

Lavender shut up the book.

"No," he said with a laugh, "you shall see it to-night. I have sufficient memoranda to work something out of by and by. Shall we have another look at the circle up there?"

He folded up and shouldered his camp-stool, and they walked up to the point at which the lines of the "mourners" converged. Perhaps he was moved by a great antiquarian curiosity: at all events, he showed a singular interest in the monuments, and talked to his companion about all the possible theories connected with such stones in a fashion that charmed her greatly. She was easily persuaded that the Callernish "Fir-Bhreige" were the most interesting relics in the world. He had seen Stonehenge, but Stonehenge was too scattered to be impressive. There was more mystery about the means by which the inhabitants of a small island could have hewn and carved and erected these blocks: there was, moreover, the mystery about the vanished population itself. Yes, he had been to Carnac also. He had driven down from Auray in a rumbling old trap, his coachman being unable to talk French. He had seen the half-cultivated plain on which there were rows and rows of small stones, scarcely to be distinguished from the stone walls of the adjoining farms. What was there impressive about such a sight when you went into a house and paid a franc to be shown the gold ornaments picked up about the place? Here, however, was a perfect series of those strange memorials, with the long lanes leading up to a circle, and the tallest of all the stones placed on the western side of the circle, perhaps as the headstone of the buried chief. Look at the position, too—the silent hill, the waters of the sea-loch around it, and beyond that the desolation of miles of untenanted moorland. Sheila looked pleased that her companion, after coming so far, should have found something worth looking at in the Lewis.

"Does it not seem strange," he said suddenly, "to think of young folks of the present day picking up wild-flowers from among these old stones?" He was looking at a tiny bouquet which she had gathered.

"Will you take them?" she said, quite simply and naturally offering him the flowers. "They may remind you some time of Callernish."

He took the flowers, and regarded them for a moment in silence, and then he said gently, "I do not think I shall want these to remind me of Callernish. I shall never forget our being here."

At this moment, perhaps fortunately, Duncan appeared, and came along toward the young people with a basket in his hand.

"It wass Mr. Mackenzie will ask if ye will tek a glass o' whisky, sir, and a bit o' bread and cheese. And he wass sayin' there wass no hurry at all, and he will wait for you for two hours or half an hour whatever."

"All right, Duncan: go back and tell him I have finished, and we shall be there directly. No, thank you, don't take out the whisky—unless, Miss Mackenzie," added the young man with a smile, "Duncan can persuade you."

Duncan looked with amazement at the man who dared to joke about Miss Sheila taking whisky, and without waiting for any further commands indignantly shut the lid of the basket and walked off.

"I wonder, Miss Mackenzie," said Lavender as they went along the path and down the hill—"I wonder what you would say if I happened to call you Sheila by mistake?"

"I should be glad if you did that. Every one calls me Sheila," said the girl quietly enough.

"You would not be vexed?" he said, regarding her with a little surprise.

"No: why should I be vexed?" she answered; and she happened to look up, and he saw what a clear light of sincerity there was shining in her eyes.

"May I then call you Sheila?"

"Yes."

"But—but—" he said, with a timidity and embarrassment of which she showed no trace whatever—"but people might think it strange, you know; and yet I should greatly like to call you Sheila; only, not before other people perhaps."

"But why not?" she said with her eyebrows just raised a little. "Why should you wish to call me Sheila at one time and not at the other? It is no difference whatever, and every one calls me Sheila."

Lavender was a little disappointed. He had hoped, when she consented in so friendly a manner to his calling her by any name he chose, that he could have established this little arrangement, which would have had about it something of the nature of a personal confidence. Sheila would evidently have none of that. Was it that she was really so simple and frank in her ways that she did not understand why there should be such a difference, and what it might imply, or was she well aware of everything he had been wishing, and able to assume this air of simplicity and ignorance with a perfect grace? Ingram, he reflected, would have said at once that to suspect Sheila of such duplicity was to insult her; but then Ingram was perhaps himself a trifle too easily imposed on, and he had notions about women, despite all his philosophical reading and such like, that a little more mingling in society might have caused him to alter. Frank Lavender confessed to himself that Sheila was either a miracle of ingenuousness or a thorough mistress of the art of assuming it. On the one hand, he considered it almost impossible for a woman to be so disingenuous; on the other hand, how could this girl have taught herself, in the solitude of a savage island, a species of histrionicism which women in London circles strove for years to acquire, and rarely acquired in any perfection? At all events, he said to himself, while he reserved his opinion on this point, he was not going to call Sheila Sheila before folks who would know what that meant. Mr. Mackenzie was evidently a most irascible old gentleman. Goodness only knew what sort of law prevailed in these wild parts; and to be seized at midnight by a couple of brawny fishermen, to be carried down to a projecting ledge of rock—! Had not Ingram already hinted that Mackenzie would straightway throw into Loch Roag the man who should offer to carry away Sheila from him?

But how could these doubts of Sheila's sincerity last? He sat opposite her in the wagonette, and the perfect truth of her face, of her frank eyes and of her ready smile met him at every moment, whether he talked to her or to Ingram, or listened to old Mackenzie, who turned from time to time from the driving of the horses to inform the stranger of what he saw around him. It was the most brilliant of mornings. The sun burned on the white road, on the green moorland, on the gray-lichened rocks with their crimson patches of heather. As they drove by the curious convolutions of this rugged coast, the sea that lay beyond these recurring bays and points was of a windy green, with here and there a streak of white, and the fresh breeze blowing across to them tempered the fierce heat of the sun. How cool, too, were those little fresh-water lakes they passed, the clear blue and white of them stirred into wavelets that moved the reeds and left air-bubbles about the half-submerged stones! Were not those wild-geese over there, flapping in the water with their huge wings and taking no notice of the passing strangers? Lavender had never seen this lonely coast in times of gloom, with those little lakes become sombre pools, and the outline of the rocks beyond lost in the driving mist of the sea and the rain. It was altogether a bright and beautiful world he had got into, and there was in it but one woman, beautiful beyond his dreams. To doubt her was to doubt all women. When he looked at her he forgot the caution and distrust and sardonic self-complacency his southern training had given him. He believed, and the world seemed to be filled with a new light.

"That is Loch-na-Muirne," Mackenzie was saying, "and it iss the Loch of the Mill; and over there that is Loch-a-Bhaile, and that iss the Loch of the Town; but where iss the loch and the town now? It wass many hundreds of years before there will be numbers of people in this place; and you will come to Dun Charlobhaidh, which is a great castle, by and by. And what wass it will drive away the people, and leave the land to the moss, but that there wass no one to look after them? 'When the natives will leave Islay, farewell to the peace of Scotland.' That iss a good proverb. And if they have no one to mind them, they will go away altogether. And there is no people more obedient than the people of the Highlands—not anywhere; for you know that we say, 'Is it the truth, as if you were speaking before kings?' And now there is the castle, and there wass many people living here when they could build that."

It was, in truth, one of those circular forts the date of which has given rise to endless conjecture and discussion. Perched up on a hill, it overlooked a number of deep and narrow valleys that ran landward, while the other side of the hill sloped down to the sea-shore. It was a striking object, this tumbling mass of dark stones standing high over the green hollows and over the light plain of the sea. Was there not here material for another sketch for Sheila? While Lavender had gone away over the heights and hollows to choose his point of view a rough and ready luncheon had been spread out in the wagonette, and when he returned, perspiring and considerably blown, he found old Mackenzie measuring out equal portions of peat-water and whisky, Duncan flicking the enormous "clegs" from off the horses' necks, Ingram trying to persuade Sheila to have some sherry out of a flask he carried, and everybody in very good spirits over such an exciting event as a roadside luncheon on a summer forenoon.

The King of Borva had by this time become excellent friends with the young stranger who had ventured into his dominions. When the old gentleman had sufficiently impressed on everybody that he had observed all necessary precaution in studying the character and inquiring into the antecedents of Lavender, he could not help confessing to a sense of lightness and vivacity that the young man seemed to bring with him and shed around him. Nor was this matter of the sketches the only thing that had particularly recommended Lavender to the old man. Mackenzie had a most distinct dislike to Gaelic songs. He could not bear the monotonous melancholy of them. When Sheila, sitting by herself, would sing these strange old ballads of an evening, he would suddenly enter the room, probably find her eyes filled with tears, and then he would in his inmost heart devote the whole of Gaelic minstrelsy and all its authors to the infernal gods. Why should people be for ever saddening themselves with the stories of other folks' misfortunes? It was bad enough for those poor people, but they had borne their sorrows and died, and were at peace. Surely it was better that we should have songs about ourselves—drinking or fighting, if you like—to keep up the spirits, to lighten the serious cares of life, and drown for a while the responsibility of looking after a whole population of poor, half-ignorant, unphilosophical creatures.

"Look, now," he would say, speaking of his own tongue, "look at this teffle of a language! It has no present tense to its verbs: the people they are always looking forward to a melancholy future or looking back to a melancholy past. In the name of Kott, hef we not got ourselves to live? This day we live in is better than any day that wass before or iss to come, bekass it is here and we are alive. And I will hef no more of these songs about crying, and crying, and crying!"

Now Sheila and Lavender, in their mutual musical confidences, had at an early period discovered that each of them knew something of the older English duets, and forthwith they tried a few of them, to Mackenzie's extreme delight. Here, at last, was a sort of music he could understand—none of your moanings of widows and cries of luckless girls to the sea, but good common-sense songs, in which the lads kissed the lasses with a will, and had a good drink afterward, and a dance on the green on their homeward way. There was fun in those happy Mayfields, and good health and briskness in the ale-house choruses, and throughout them all a prevailing cheerfulness and contentment with the conditions of life certain to recommend itself to the contemplative mind. Mackenzie never tired of hearing those simple ditties. He grew confidential with the young man, and told him that those fine, common-sense songs recalled pleasant scenes to him. He himself knew something of English village life. When he had been up to see the Great Exhibition he had gone to visit a friend living in Brighton, and he had surveyed the country with an observant eye. He had remarked several village-greens, with the May-poles standing here and there in front of the cottages, emblazoned with beautiful banners. He had, it is true, fancied that the May-pole should be in the centre of the green; but the manner in which the waves of population swept here and there, swallowing up open spaces and so forth, would account to a philosophical person for the fact that the May-poles were now close to the village-shops.

"Drink to me only with thine eyes," hummed the King of Borva to himself as he sent the two little horses along the coast-road on this warm summer day. He had heard the song for the first time on the previous evening. He had no voice to speak of; he had missed the air, and these were all the words he remembered; but it was a notable compliment all the same to the young man who had brought these pleasant tunes to the island. And so they drove on through the keen salt air, with the sea shining beside them and the sky shining over them; and in the afternoon they arrived at the small, remote and solitary inn of Barvas, placed near the confluence of several rivers that flow through Loch Barvas (or Barabhas) to the sea. Here they proposed to stop the night, so that Lavender, when his room had been assigned to him, begged to be left alone for an hour or two, that he might throw a little color into his sketch of Callernish. What was there to see at Barvas? Why, nothing but the channels of the brown streams, some pasture-land and a few huts, then the unfrequented lake, and beyond that some ridges of white sand standing over the shingly beach of the sea. He would join them at dinner. Mackenzie protested in a mild way: he really wanted to see how the island was to be illustrated by the stranger. There was a greater protest, mingled with compassion and regret, in Sheila's eyes; but the young man was firm. So they let him have his way, and gave him full possession of the common sitting-room, while they set off to visit the school and the Free-Church manse and what not in the neighborhood.

Mackenzie had ordered dinner at eight, to show that he was familiar with the ways of civilized life; and when they returned at that hour Lavender had two sketches finished.

"Yes, they are very good," said Ingram, who was seldom enthusiastic about his friend's work.

But old Mackenzie was so vastly pleased with the picture, which represented his native place in the brightest of sunshine and colors, that he forgot to assume a critical air. He said nothing against the rainy and desolate version of the scene that had been given to Sheila: it was good enough to please the child. But here was something brilliant, effective, cheerful; and he alarmed Lavender not a little by proposing to get one of the natives to carry this treasure, then and there, back to Borvabost. Both sketches were ultimately returned to his book, and then Sheila helped him to remove his artistic apparatus from the table on which their plain and homely meal was to be placed. As she was about to follow her father and Ingram, who had left the room, she paused for a moment and said to Lavender, with a look of frank gratitude in her eyes, "It is very good of you to have pleased my papa so much. I know when he is pleased, though he does not speak of it; and it is not often he will be so much pleased."

"And you, Sheila?" said the young man, unconscious of the familiarity he was using, and only remembering that she had scarcely thanked him for the other sketch.

"Well, there is nothing that will please me so much as to see him pleased," she said with a smile.

He was about to open the door for her, but he kept his hand on the handle, and said, earnestly enough, "But that is such a small matter—an hour's work. If you only knew how gladly I would live all my life here if only I could do you some greater service—"

She looked a little surprised, and then for one brief second reflected. English was not wholly familiar to her: perhaps she had failed to catch what he really meant. But at all events she said gravely and simply, "You would soon tire of living here: it is not always a holiday." And then, without lifting her eyes to his face, she turned to the door, and he opened it for her and she was gone.

It was about ten o'clock when they went outside for their evening stroll, and all the world had grown enchanted since they had seen it in the colors of the sunset. There was no night, but a strange clearness over the sky and the earth, and down in the south the moon was rising over the Barvas hills. In the dark green meadows the cattle were still grazing. Voices of children could be heard in the far distance, with the rumble of a cart coming through the silence, and the murmur of the streams flowing down to the loch. The loch itself lay like a line of dusky yellow in a darkened hollow near the sea, having caught on its surface the pale glow of the northern heavens, where the sun had gone down hours before. The air was warm and yet fresh with the odors of the Atlantic, and there was a scent of Dutch clover coming across from the sandy pastures nearer the coast. The huts of the small hamlet could but faintly be made out beyond the dark and low-lying pastures, but a long, pale line of blue smoke lay in the motionless air, and the voices of the children told of open doors. Night after night this same picture, with slight variations of position, had been placed before the stranger who had come to view these solitudes, and night after night it seemed to him to grow more beautiful. He could put down on paper the outlines of an every-day landscape, and give them a dash of brilliant color to look well on a wall; but how to carry away, except in the memory, any impression of the strange lambent darkness, the tender hues, the loneliness and the pathos of those northern twilights?

They walked down by the side of one of the streams toward the sea. But Sheila was not his companion on this occasion. Her father had laid hold of him, and was expounding to him the rights of capitalists and various other matters. But by and by Lavender drew his companion on to talk of Sheila's mother; and here, at least, Mackenzie was neither tedious nor ridiculous nor unnecessarily garrulous. It was with a strange interest the young man heard the elderly man talk of his courtship, his marriage, the character of his wife, and her goodness and beauty. Was it not like looking at a former Sheila? and would not this Sheila now walking before him go through the same tender experiences, and be admired and loved and petted by everybody as this other girl had been, who brought with her the charm of winning ways and a gentle nature into these rude wilds? It was the first time he had heard Mackenzie speak of his wife, and it turned out to be the last; but from that moment the older man had something of dignity in the eyes of this younger man, who had merely judged of him by his little foibles and eccentricities, and would have been ready to dismiss him contemptuously as a buffoon. There was something, then, behind that powerful face, with its deep-cut lines, its heavy eyebrows and piercing and sometimes sad eyes, besides a mere liking for tricks of childish diplomacy. Lavender began to have some respect for Sheila's father, and made a resolution to guard against the impertinence of humoring him too ostentatiously.

Was it not hard, though, that Ingram, who was so cold and unimpressionable, who smiled at the notion of marrying, and who was probably enjoying his pipe quite as much as Sheila's familiar talk, should have the girl all to himself on this witching night? They reached the shores of the Atlantic. There was not a breath of wind coming in from the sea, but the air seemed even sweeter and cooler as they sat down on the great bank of shingle. Here and there birds were calling, and Sheila could distinguish each one of them. As the moon rose a faint golden light began to tremble here and there on the waves, as if some subterranean caverns were lit up and sending to the surface faint and fitful rays of their splendor. Farther along the coast the tall banks of white sand grew white in the twilight, and the outlines of the dark pasture-land behind grew more distinct.

But when they rose to go back to Barvas the moonlight had grown full and clear, and the long and narrow loch had a pathway of gold across, stretching from the reeds and sedges of the one side to the reeds and sedges of the other. And now Ingram had gone on to join Mackenzie, and Sheila walked behind with Lavender, and her face was pale and beautiful in the moonlight.

"I shall be very sorry when I have to leave Lewis," he said as they walked along the path leading through the sand and the clover; and there could be no doubt that he felt the regret expressed in the words.

"But it is no use to speak of leaving us yet," said Sheila cheerfully: "it is a long time before you will go away from the Lewis."

"And I fancy I shall always think of the island just as it is now—with the moonlight over there, and a loch near, and you walking through the stillness. We have had so many evening walks like this."

"You will make us very vain of our island," said the girl with a smile, "if you will speak like that always to us. Is there no moonlight in England? I have pictures of English scenery that will be far more beautiful than any we have here; and if there is the moon here, it will be there too. Think of the pictures of the river Thames that my papa showed you last night—"

"Oh, but there is nothing like this in the South," said the young man impetuously. "I do not believe there is in the world anything so beautiful as this. Sheila, what would you say if I resolved to come and live here always?"

"I should like that very much—more than you would like it, perhaps," she said with a bright laugh.

"That would please you better than for you to go always and live in England, would it not?"

"But that is impossible," she said. "My papa would never think of living in England."

For some time after he was silent. The two figures in front of them walked steadily on, an occasional roar of laughter from the deep chest of Mackenzie startling the night air, and telling of Ingram's being in a communicative mood. At last Lavender said, "It seems to me so great a pity that you should live in this remote place, and have so little amusement, and see so few people of tastes and education like your own. Your papa is so much occupied—he is so much older than you, too—that you must be left to yourself so much; whereas if you had a companion of your own age, who could have the right to talk frankly to you, and go about with you, and take care of you—"

By this time they had reached the little wooden bridge crossing the stream, and Mackenzie and Ingram had got to the inn, where they stood in front of the door in the moonlight. Before ascending the steps of the bridge, Lavender, without pausing in his speech, took Sheila's hand and said suddenly, "Now don't let me alarm you, Sheila, but suppose at some distant day—as far away as you please—I came and asked you to let me be your companion then and always, wouldn't you try?"

She looked up with a startled glance of fear in her eyes, and withdrew her hand from him.

"No, don't be frightened," he said quite gently. "I don't ask you for any promise. Sheila, you must know I love you—you must have seen it. Will you not let me come to you at some future time—a long way off—that you may tell me then? Won't you try to do that?"

There was more in the tone of his voice than in his words. The girl stood irresolute for a second or two, regarding him with a strange, wistful, earnest look; and then a great gentleness came into her eyes, and she put out her hand to him and said in a low voice, "Perhaps."

But there was something so grave and simple about her manner at this moment that he dared not somehow receive it as a lover receives the first admission of love from the lips of a maiden. There had been something of a strange inquiry in her face as she regarded him for a second or two; and now that her eyes were bent on the ground it seemed to him that she was trying to realize the full effect of the concession she had made. He would not let her think. He took her hand and raised it respectfully to his lips, and then he led her forward to the bridge. Not a word was spoken between them while they crossed the shining space of moonlight to the shadow of the house; and as they went indoors he caught but one glimpse of her eyes, and they were friendly and kind toward him, but evidently troubled. He saw her no more that night.

So he had asked Sheila to be his wife, and she had given him some timid encouragement as to the future. Many a time within these last few days had he sketched out an imaginative picture of the scene. He was familiar with the passionate rapture of lovers on the stage, in books and in pictures; and he had described himself (to himself) as intoxicated with joy, anxious to let the whole world know of his good fortune, and above all to confide the tidings of his happiness to his constant friend and companion. But now, as he sat in one corner of the room, he almost feared to be spoken to by the two men who sat at the table with steaming glasses before them. He dared not tell Ingram: he had no wish to tell him, even if he had got him alone. And as he sat there and recalled the incident that had just occurred by the side of the little bridge, he could not wholly understand its meaning. There had been none of the eagerness, the coyness, the tumult of joy he had expected: all he could remember clearly was the long look that the large, earnest, troubled eyes had fixed upon him, while the girl's face, grown pale in the moonlight, seemed somehow ghost-like and strange.