'Oh, if you should ever come to regret, and with regret to love me less!' said she, in a low voice, with her eyes for a moment fixed on vacancy. 'Why that boding thought, Flora?' 'Because, surely, such great love never lasts.' He kissed her again as the readiest response. But the sequel proved that his great love outlasted her own life, poor girl! Then they sat long silent, hand locked in hand, while the gloaming deepened round them, for words seem poor and feeble when the heart is very full. 'How long will they continue to despise me?' said Flora suddenly, while across her soft cheeks there rushed the hot blood of a long and gallant line of Celtic ancestors. An exclamation of bitterness--almost impatience, escaped Lennard. 'Let us forget them--father, mother, all!' said he. The girl looked passionately into the face of her lover-husband--the husband of a month; and never did her bright hazel eyes seem more tender and soft than now, with all the fire of love and pride sparkling in their depths, for her Highland spirit and nature revolted at the affront to which she was subjected. The bearing of Lennard Melfort and the poise of his close-shorn head told that he was a soldier, and a well-drilled one; and the style of his light grey suit showed how thoroughly he was a gentleman; and to Flora's loving and partial eye he was every-way a model man. They had been married just a month, we have said, a month that very day, and Lennard had brought his bride to the little burgh town, within a short distance of Craigengowan, and left her in their apartments while he sought with his father and mother the bootless interview just narrated. For three days before he had the courage to bring it about, they had spent the time together, full of hopeful thoughts, strolling along the banks of the pretty Bervie, from the blue current of which ever and anon the bull-trout and the salmon rise to the flies; or in the deep and leafy recourses of the adjacent woods, and climbing the rugged coast, against which the waves of the German Sea were rolling in golden foam; or ascending Craig David, so called from David II. of Scotland--a landmark from the sea for fifteen leagues--for both had a true and warm appreciation and artistic love of Nature in all her moods and aspects.