waters of the Atlantic itself, which lay under a gloom of violet clouds. “Now,” said Sheila, with a smile, “we have not always weather as good as this in the island. Will you not sit on the bench over there with Mr. Ingram, and wait until my papa and I come up from the village again?” “May not I go down with you?” “No. The dogs would learn you were a stranger, and there would be a great deal of noise, and there will be many of the poor people asleep.” So Sheila had her way; and she and her father went down the hillside into the gloom of the village, while Lavender went to join his friend Ingram, who was sitting on the wooden bench silently smoking a clay pipe. “Well, I have never seen the like of this,” said Lavender, in his impetuous way; “it is worth going a thousand miles to see. Such colors and such clearness! and then the splendid outlines of those mountains, and the grand sweep of this loch! This is the sort of thing that drives me to despair, and might make one vow never to touch a brush again. And Sheila says it will be like this all the night through.” He was unaware that he had spoken of her in a very familiar way, but Ingram noticed it. “Ingram,” he said, suddenly, “that is the first girl I have ever seen whom I should like to marry.” “Stuff!” “But it is true. I have never seen any one like her--so handsome, so gentle, and yet so very frank in setting you right. And then she is so sensible, you know, and not too proud to have much interest in all sorts of common affairs--” There was a smile in Ingram’s face, and his companion stopped in some vexation: “You are not a very sympathetic confidant.” “Because I know the story of old. You have told it me about twenty women; and it is always the same. I tell you, you don’t know anything at all about Sheila Mackenzie yet; perhaps you never may. I suppose you will make a heroine of her, and will fall in love with her for a fortnight, and then go back to London and get cured by listening to the witticisms of Mrs. Lorraine.” “Thank you very much.” “Oh, I didn’t mean to offend you. Some day, no doubt, you will love a woman for what she is, not for what you fancy her to be; but that is a piece of good fortune that seldom occurs to a youth of your age. To marry in a dream, and wake up six months afterwards--that is the fate of ingenuous twenty-three. But don’t you let Mackenzie hear you talk of marrying Sheila, or he’ll have some of his fishermen throw you into Loch Roag.”