“That I must keep to myself,” replied the girl, rising as she spoke, and flinging her hair back from her face. “I have often thought, since I came down here this time, that such people as we are have neither right nor title to mix among such as you; and yet I do not know—whatever of good I have learned, whatever faith in virtue and honesty I possess, I have learned and I have acquired from you. Oh, Heather!—oh, Heather!——” and she clasped her hands high above her head. Then, in a moment, the fit was over, and the speaker fell into her usual tone. “I will try to do what you ask,” she said, “and treat my respected parent with the deference you desire. Kiss me for that—kiss me once, kiss me twice—kiss me as though you meant it. If I had been a man, I should have married you, Heather; if I had been a duke, I should have laid my rank and wealth at your feet, and prayed you take them—take everything, if you would only take me as well. If you tell me to do it this minute, I will stay with you all my life, and never marry any one.” “What a strange girl you are!” said Heather, tossing over the soft hair, twining and curling it round her hand. “Ay! all puzzles seem strange till you hold the key,” answered Bessie. “Let me light you along the passage, and do not lie awake thinking of me.” CHAPTER VI. BESSIE’S LETTER. The summer days ran on. They flowed by smooth and pleasant—so Bessie Ormson said in one of her sentimental moods—like a swift river among lovely green fields. “Look at that stream,” she remarked to Alick, as they stood, on the Sunday following Heather’s return, side by side, leaning over the parapet of a little bridge which spanned the Kemm; “do you know what it puts me in mind of?” “No,” answered the boy, to whom sometimes the talk of his companion was as the talk of a creature from another world; “I cannot know what anything puts you in mind of, for you are like no other person I ever met in all my life before.” “So much the better for you,” she replied. “Do I not often inform you I am one of the daughters of Cain, come on a short visit to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden? and that brings me back to the river: it runs by—like existence at Berrie Down—with scarcely a ripple on its surface. I should like to be the Kemm,” she added in a lower tone, “murmuring on over the pebbles, never singing a more passionate strain than that—never fretting or fuming—never forcing my way through rocks and stones—never brawling—never uncertain as to my future course—but stealing quietly and peacefully to the great sea;” and as she spoke, Bessie dropped her arms over the parapet of the little bridge, and looked into the stream sadly and dreamily.