“Oh, my dear! my dear!” I cried, stopping and putting my hand daringly on her shoulder. “You know it is not any of these; you must know I mean yourself. Here am I, a man travelled, no longer a youth, though still with the flush of it, no longer with a humility to let me doubt myself worthy of your best thoughts; I have let slip a score of chances on this same path, and even now I cannot muster up the spirit to brave your possible anger.” She laughed a very pleasant soothing laugh and released her shoulder. “At least you give me plenty of warning,” she said. “I am going to kiss you now,” I said, with great firmness. She walked a little faster, panting as I could hear, and I blamed myself that I had alarmed her. “At least,” I added, “I’ll do it when we get to Bealloch-an-uarain well.” She hummed a snatch of Gaelic song we have upon that notable well, a song that is all an invitation to drink the waters while you are young and drink you may, and I suddenly ventured to embrace her with an arm. She drew up with stern lips and back from my embrace, and Elrigmore was again in torment. “You are to blame yourself,” I said, huskily; “you let me think I might. And now I see you are angry.” “Am I?” she said, smiling again. “I think you said the well, did you not!” “And may I?” eagerly I asked, devouring her with my eyes. “You may--at the well,” she answered, and then she laughed softly. Again my spirits bounded. “But I was not thinking of going there to-night,” she added, and the howlet in the bush beside me hooted at my ignominy. I walked in a perspiration of vexation and alarm. It was plain that here was no desire for my caress, that the girl was but probing the depth of my presumption, and I gave up all thought of pushing my intention to performance. Our conversation turned to more common channels, and I had hoped my companion had lost the crude impression of my wooing as we passed the path that led from the hunting-road to the Bealloch-an-uarain. “Oh!” she cried here, “I wished for some ivy; I thought to pluck it farther back, and your nonsense made me quite forget.” “Cannot we return for it?” I said, well enough pleased at the chance of prolonging our walk. “No; it is too late,” she answered abruptly. “Is there nowhere else here where we could get it?” “I do not think so,” I said, stupidly. Then I remembered that it grew in the richest profusion on the face of the grotto we call Bealloch-an-uarain. “Except at the well,” I added. “Of course it is so; now I remember,” said she; “there is plenty of it there. Let us haste and get it” And she led the way up the path, I following with a heart that surged and beat.