"Ah, Kenneth! This fine talk I do not understand. It's sheer nonsense to tell such idle clavers about me. Am I not just a plain Highland lassie, as unskilled in flattering speeches as in furbelows and patches? Gin you will play me a spring on the pipes I'll maybe can dance you the fling, but of French minuets I have small skill." "Call me dreamer if you will. By Helen's glove, your dreamer might be the envy of kings. Since I have known you life has taken a different hue. One lives for years without joy, pain, colour, all things toned to the dull monochrome of gray, and then one day the contact with another soul quickens one to renewed life, to more eager unselfish living. Never so bright a sun before, never so beautiful a moon. 'Tis true, Aileen. No fear but one, that Fate, jealous, may snatch my love from me." Her laughter dashed my heroics; yet I felt, too, that back of her smiles there was belief. "I dare say. At the least I will have heard it before. The voice iss Jacob's voice, but----" I blushed, remembering too late that my text and its application were both Volney's. "'Tis true, even if Jacob said it first. If a man is worth his salt love must purify him. Sure it must. I am a better man for knowing you." A shy wonder filled her eyes; thankfulness too was there. "Yet you are a man that has fought battles and known life, and I am only an ignorant girl." I lifted her hand and kissed it. "You are my queen, and I am your most loyal and devoted servant." "For always, Kenn? When you are meeting the fine ladies of London will you love a Highland lassie that cannot make eyes and swear choicely?" "Forever and a day, dear." Aileen referred to the subject again two hours later when we arose from the table at the Manchester ordinary. It was her usual custom to retire to her room immediately after eating. To-night when I escorted her to the door she stood for a moment drawing patterns on the lintel with her fan. A fine blush touched her cheek. "Were you meaning all that, Kennie?" "All what, dear heart?" "That--nonsense--in the forest." "Every bit of it." Her fan spelt Kenneth on the door. "Sometimes," she went on softly, "a fancy is built on moonlight and laughing eyes and opportunity. It iss like sunshine in winter on Raasay--just for an hour and then the mists fall." "For our love there will be no mists." "Ah, Kenn, you think so now, but afterward, when you take up again your London life, and I cannot play the lady of fashion, when you weary of my simpleness and are wishing me back among the purple heather hills?" "That will be never, unless I wish myself there with you. I am no London Mohawk like Volney. To tramp the heather after muircocks or to ride to hounds is more my fancy. The Macaronis and I came long since to the parting of the ways. I am for a snug home in the country with the woman I love." I stepped to the table, filled a glass with wine, and brought it to her.