It was on a clear and white-shining morning in the following spring that Donald Ross and his newly-wedded bride were walking arm-in-arm through the budding larch-woods, the sun warm on the green bracken, on the golden furze, and on the grey rocks. She was angry with him; though the anger did not show much in her dimpled and fresh-tinted cheeks, nor yet in her eyes, where the love-light lay only half-concealed by the modest lashes. "It is a pestilent language!" she was saying, with frowning brows. "I do believe the heavens and the earth shall pass away before I become thoroughly acquainted with that awful grammar; and unless, as Barbara says, I ’have the Gaelic,’ how am I ever to get into proper relationship with the people about here?—yes, and how am I to be sure that you are not stealing away their hearts from me? Oh, it is a very pretty trick, the stealing away of hearts—you are rather clever at it," said she, with downcast and smiling eyes. "_Mo-ghaol_," said he (and there were some Gaelic phrases, at least, of which she had by this time got to know the meaning well enough), "I thought you were going to let me be your interpreter." "Why do you not begin, then? Where are the verses that Mrs. Armour sent?" she said. "You promised you would write out a translation for me." "And so I have," he answered her—yet with some apparent unwillingness. "I have written out a translation, in a kind of a way, because you insisted on it. But it is a shame. For the Gaelic is a most expressive language; and all the subtlety and grace of the original escape when you come down to a literal rendering in English. Besides, what skill have I in such things? If you like, I will send it to the editor of the _Celtic Magazine_, and ask him to get it properly translated—he has printed some of Mrs. Armour’s pieces before now—in Gaelic, of course——" "I want your version—none other," she said, imperatively. "Very well, very well; I will read it to you," said he, taking a sheet of paper from his pocket. "Here is a seat for you." It was a rock mostly covered by soft green moss; and when she had seated herself, he threw himself down on the bracken by her side, leaning his head against her knee. And this is what the old dame out there in Canada had sent them as her humble wedding-gift—perhaps, as to the form of it, with some recollection of the song of the Princess Deirdri influencing her unequal lines:— _I am far from the land of my fathers._ _I sit and mourn because of the great distance._ _My old age brings me no comfort,_ _Since I am far from my own land._ _My eyes strain across the wide ocean._ _I see the lofty hills, and the peaks, and the glens;_ _I see the corries where the wide-antlered deer wander._ _Joyful to me was my youth there._ _I see the woods, deep-sheltered;_ _I see the rivers flowing by the rocks;_ _I see the sandy bays, and the headlands;_ _I see the sun [setting] behind Eilean Heimra._