"I'll no be sae bonnie, I'm thinking." Something in her tone struck through even her companion's absorption; for Paul Macleod was given to forgetting his world over trivialities. He looked up sharply, rose hastily, stepped across to where she stood, and laid his hand on her shoulder in easy familiarity. "Why, Jeanie, what's the matter now?" She moved away impatiently from his touch, and, as if from habit, her arm, showing white under the russet bedgown she wore, went up to the branch above her head. And there she stood once more with the ripe red berries against her ripe red lips. "I'm sayin' I'll no be sae bonnie as yon." "Your eyes are not quite so blue, certainly; your cheeks not quite so pink, your hair not quite so golden, nor your----" "That's enough, sir; ye needn't fash yourself more. I'm no for sale by public roup. I was sayin' myself that I'll no be near sae bonnie as yon." The rowan berries were being viciously stripped from their stems, and allowed to fall in a defiant patter on the ground; yet there were audible tears in the young voice. "You little goose! I didn't know you were so vain, Jeanie," he began. "I'm no vain," she interrupted, sharply. "It's no that, Mr. Paul. I dinna care--at least no much--but if a lassie's bonnie----" she paused suddenly and let the branch go. It swung back, sending a red shower of overripe berries pattering round the girl and the man. "Well, Jeanie! If a lassie's bonnie?" repeated Paul Macleod, watching the rapid changes in her vivid face with amused admiration; "if a lassie's bonnie, what happens?" She confronted him with a certain dignity new to his experience of her. "Ye ken fine, Mr. Paul, the difference it makes to a lassie if she is real bonnie. Wasn't it yourself was lilting the 'Beggar-Maid' at me the morn?" "Gracious Heavens, Jeanie! Ambitious as well! On which of the crowned heads of Europe have you set your young affections? Tell me, that I may kill him!" His arm slipped easily to her waist, and he bent to look in the face which fell as it were before his touch. Yet it was paler than it had been; for Jeanie Duncan neither giggled nor blushed. "It's no matter where I set my heart," she said, curtly, "when I'm no bonnie." "Who said so? Not I," he remarked, coolly. "You said my eyes were no sae blue, my lips no sae red, my hair----" "Thank heaven they're not! Why, Jeanie! You must surely know that you are a thousand times more beautiful than that--that chromo-lithograph over there, which is only fit for a second-class Christmas number or an undergraduate's room!" She withdrew herself from his arm, looking at him doubtfully, ready to flare up in an instant. "You're no pokin' fun at me?" "Poking fun! Why"--his voice deepened suddenly, he stretched his hand towards her again--"you are simply the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."