"Do you really mean to tell me, Ingram," continued Lavender in his rapid and impetuous way--"do you mean to tell me that you are not in love with this Highland princess? For ages back you have talked of nothing but Sheila. How many an hour have I spent in clubs, up the river, down at the coast, everywhere, listening to your stories of Sheila, and your praises of Sheila, and your descriptions of Sheila! It was always Sheila, and again Sheila, and still again Sheila. But, do you know, either you exaggerated or I failed to understand your descriptions; for the Sheila I came to construct out of your talk is a most incongruous and incomprehensible creature. First, Sheila knows about stone and lime and building; and then I suppose her to be a practical young woman, who is a sort of overseer to her father. But Sheila, again, is romantic and mysterious, and believes in visions and dreams; and then I take her to be an affected school-miss. But then Sheila can throw a fly and play her sixteen-pounder, and Sheila can adventure upon the lochs in an open boat, managing the sail herself; and then I find her to be a tom-boy. But, again, Sheila is shy and rarely speaks, but looks unutterable things with her soft and magnificent eyes; and what does that mean but that she is an ordinary young lady, who has not been in society, and who is a little interesting, if a little stupid, while she is unmarried, and who after marriage calmly and complacently sinks into the dull domestic hind, whose only thought is of butchers' bills and perambulators?" This was a fairly long speech, but it was no longer than many which Frank Lavender was accustomed to utter when in the vein for talking. His friend and companion did not pay much heed. His hands were still clasped round his knee, his head leaning back, and all the answer he made was to repeat, apparently to himself, these not very pertinent lines: "In Ockington, in Devonsheer, My vather he lived vor many a yeer; And I his son with him did dwell, To tend his sheep: 'twas doleful well. Diddle-diddle!" "You know, Ingram, it must be precious hard for a man who has to knock about in society, and take his wife with him, to have to explain to everybody that she is in reality a most unusual and gifted young person, and that she must not be expected to talk. It is all very well for him in his own house--that is to say, if he can preserve all the sentiment that made her shyness fine and wonderful before their marriage--but a man owes a little to society, even in choosing a wife." Another pause. "It happened on a zartin day Four-score o' the sheep they rinned astray: Says vather to I, 'Jack, rin arter 'm, du!' Sez I to vather, 'I'm darned if I du!' Diddle-diddle!"