“Because it is so sweet?” said Effie. “Yes, that is a thing that revenges the poor folk. You can make the roses as big as a child’s head, but for sweetness the little old ones in the cottage gardens are always the best.” “Everything is sweet, I think, that is native here.” “Oh!” said Effie, with a deep breath of pleasure, taking the compliment as it sounded, not thinking of herself in it. “I am glad to hear you say that! for I think so too--the clover, and the heather, and the hawthorn, and the meadow-sweet. There is a sweet-brier hedge at the manse that Uncle John is very proud of. When it is in blossom he always brings a little rose of it to me.” “Then I wish I might have that rose,” the young lover said. “From the sweet-brier? They are all dead long ago; and I cannot give you this one, because it is the last. Does winter come round sooner here, Mr. Dirom, than in--the South?” What Effie meant by the South was no more than England--a country, according to her imagination, in which the sun blazed, and where the climate in summer was almost more than honest Scots veins could bear. That was not Fred’s conception of the South. He smiled in a somewhat imbecile way, and replied, “Everything is best here. Dark, and true, and tender is the North: no, not dark, that is a mistake of the poet. Fair, and sweet, and true--is what he ought to have said.” “There are many dark people as well as fair in Scotland,” said Effie; “people think we have all yellow hair. There is Uncle John, he is dark, and true, and tender--and our Eric. You don’t know our Eric, Mr. Dirom?” “I hope I shall some day. I am looking forward to it. Is he like you, Miss Effie?” “Oh, he is dark. I was telling you: and Ronald--I think we are just divided like other people, some fair--some----” “And who is Ronald?--another brother?” “Oh, no--only a friend, in the same regiment.” Effie’s colour rose a little, not that she meant anything, for what was Ronald to her? But yet there had been that reference of the Miss Dempsters which she had not understood, and which somehow threw Ronald into competition with Fred Dirom, so that Effie, without knowing it, blushed. Then she said, with a vague idea of making up to him for some imperceptible injury, “Have you ever gone through our little wood?” “I am hoping,” said Fred, “that you will take me there now.” “But the gloaming is coming on,” said Effie, “and the wind will be wild among the trees--the leaves are half off already, and the winds seem to shriek and tear them, till every branch shivers. In the autumn it is a little eerie in the wood.” “What does eerie mean? but I think I know; and nothing could be eerie,” said Fred half to himself, “while you are there.”