This tour around 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 and 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?”