And yet it was merely a question of weather. To-morrow they might come back and find the water a ruffled leaden color; the waves washing over the rocks; Ben More invisible behind driving clouds. But now, as those three sat in the stern of the gig, and were gently pulled by the sweep of the oars, it seemed to one at least of them that she must have got into fairyland. The rocky shores of Ulva lay on one side of this broad and winding channel, the flatter shores of Mull on the other, and between lay a perfect mirror of water, in which everything was so accurately reflected that it was quite impossible to define the line at which the water and the land met. In fact, so vivid was the reflection of the blue and white sky on the surface of the water that it appeared to her as if the boat was suspended in mid-air--a sky below, a sky above. And then the beauty of the landscape that enclosed this wonderful mirror--the soft green foliage above the Ulva rocks; the brilliant yellow-brown of the sea-weed, with here there a gray heron standing solitary and silent as a ghost over the pools; ahead of them, towering above this flat and shining and beautiful landscape, the awful majesty of the mountains around Loch-na-Keal--the monarch of them, Ben More, showing a cone of dark and thunderous purple under a long and heavy swathe of cloud. Far away, too, on their right, stretched the splendid rampart of the Gribun cliffs, a soft sunlight on the grassy greens of their summits; a pale and brilliant blue in the shadows of the huge and yawning caves. And so still it was, and the air so fine and sweet: it was a day for the idling of happy lovers. What jarred, then? Not the silent appearance of the head of a seal in that shining plain of blue and white; for the poor old fellow only regarded the boat for a second or two with his large and pathetic eyes, and then quietly disappeared. Perhaps it was this--that Miss White was leaning over the side of the boat, and admiring very much the wonderful hues of groups of sea-weed below, that were all distinctly visible in the marvellously clear water. There were beautiful green plants that spread their flat fingers over the silver-white sands; and huge rolls of purple and sombre brown; and long strings that came up to the surface--the traceries and decorations of these haunts of the mermaid. "It is like a pantomime," she said. "You would expect to see a burst of lime-light, and Neptune appearing with a silver trident and crown. Well, it only shows that the scene-painters are nearer nature than most people imagine. I should never have thought there was anything so beautiful in the sea." And then again she said, when they had rounded Ulva, and got a glimpse of the open Atlantic again, "Where is it, Keith, you proposed to sink all the theatres in England for the benefit of the dolphins and the lobsters?" He did not like these references to the theatre. "It was only a piece of nonsense," said he, abruptly.