“Here she’s on the surface,” said Nan, a little impatiently, arranging her flowers. And then she looked him straight in the eyes. “Ladyfield seems a poor academy,” she said, “if it taught you but to speculate on things unfathomable. I always preferred the doer to the dreamer. The mind of man is a far more interesting thing than the song of the river I’m thinking, or the trailing of mist. And woman----” she laughed and paused. “Well?” He eyed her robust and wholesome figure. “Should I expose my sex, John Hielan’man, or should I not?” she reflected with an amused look in her face yet. “Never bother to look below the surface for us,” she said. “We are better pleased, and you will speed the quicker to take us for what we seem. What matters of us is--as it is with men too--plain enough on the surface. Dear, dear! what nonsense to be on! You are far too much of the mist and mountain for me. As if I had not plenty of them up in Maam! Oh! I grow sick of them!” She began to walk faster, forgetting his company in the sudden remembrance of her troubles; and he strode awkwardly at her heels, not very dignified, like a menial overlooked. “They hang about the place like a menace,” said she. “No wonder mother died! If she was like me she must have been heart-broken when father left her to face these solitudes.” “It is so, it is so,” confessed the lad. “But they would not be wearisome with love. With love in that valley it would smile like an Indian plain.” “How do _you_ ken?” said she, stopping suddenly at this. “It would make habitable and even pleasant,” said he, “a dwelling where age and bitterness had their abode.” “Faith, you’re not so blate as I thought you!” she said, setting aside the last of her affected shy simplicity. “Blate!” he repeated, “I would not have thought that was my failing. Am I not cracking away to you like an old wife?” “Just to hide the blateness of you,” she answered. “You may go to great depths with hills and heughs and mists--and possibly with women too when you get the chance, but, my dear Gilian, you’re terribly shallow to any woman with an eye in her head.” “Did you say ‘Gilian’?” he asked, stopping and looking at her with a high colour. “Did I?” she repeated, biting her lips. “What liberty!” “No, no,” he cried---- “I thought myself young enough to venture it; but, of course, if you object----” He looked at her helplessly, realising that she was making fun of him, and she laughed. All her assurance was back to her, she knew the young gentleman was one she could twist round her little finger. “Well, well,” she went on after a silence, “you seem poorly provided with small talk. In Edinburgh, now, a young man with your chances would be making love to me by this time.” He stared at her aghast. “But, but----”