Had I had time to gather my wits and consider the situation, I should probably have recognised her presence by merely raising my hat, but this was denied me; and, acting on a sudden impulse, I went forward to meet her with my hand outstretched. With a look of surprise and, I imagined, annoyance, she stopped and regarded me earnestly for a moment. In a flash it came to me that we had never been introduced, and I blushed awkwardly and retreated a step, muttering an incoherent apology. Then ensued a long pause, an awkward silence. It was Bang who came to the rescue, and saved the situation. Wagging his scraggy apology for a tail, he sidled up to her, and in an ingratiating, wheedling way which only a dog possesses, he claimed her attention. She spoke to him, and stroked his shaggy head. Then Jip ventured forward, demanding his share of her favours, and she bent down and asked him his name. I remained tongue-tied and ill at ease, and was wishing myself a hundred miles away, when she suddenly looked toward me and smiled. 'I consider a collie and a Dandie Dinmont ideal companions,' she said. 'They are evidently very much attached to you, and old friends are the best friends.' 'Friends, yes; but they don't belong to me,' I replied. 'Bang here is an old pensioner of the village butcher, and wee Jip is the apple of our local shoemaker's eye. We've been good chums since I came down here, and I seldom go for a walk without them.' 'They weren't with you that day in Nithbank Wood?' 'No.' 'By the way,' she hastily interposed, as if glad of an opening, 'I am pleased to have met you again, and to see you are none the worse of your indiscretion in venturing so far when you weren't feeling fit. You have only one walking-stick now, instead of two; so I argue you are making good progress. Do you know,' she continued, and she gave me a look which set my heart thumping, 'I have, time and again, reproached myself for leaving you as I did. You acknowledged you had attempted too much, and you looked so helpless, so--so'----and she hesitated. 'What _is_ that very expressive Scots word, now? So'---- 'Forfaughten,' I hazarded. 'That's it--forfaughten; and you must have felt forfaughten, otherwise the word wouldn't have appealed to you as suitable.' 'Well, I admit now, I was, but at the time I didn't wish you, a lady and a stranger, to know it. Besides, you had already done a good deal for me, which, allow me to repeat, I shall not readily forget.' I was gradually regaining the confidence I had lost, and felt inclined to say more, and to tell her of my dream and what her presence meant to me; but I restrained myself; and, pointing to the paint-box she carried, I changed the subject by asking her if she was finding much inspiration in our beautiful surroundings.