“My darling, what object have we in waiting? The vacation is short enough anyway. We must not lose a day. You promised to be ready at a moment’s warning. Well, I’m giving you a day’s warning. If every thing had been right, it would have been you to fix the time, and all your fancies consulted. But we’re past that, Lily. You know you put yourself into my hands to have it done as soon as was possible.” “Did I?” said Lily, confused; and then she added: “I know. I am not one to make a trouble. It is best to be done when we can--and as soon as we can--and end this dreary life.” “That is what I knew you would say. No certainty, no ground to stand on, and not knowing what might happen at any moment. No, Lily, it is no time for scruples now.” “Still,” said Lily, “I would have liked to have heard all your plans and what we are to do. It is fine planning. It is aye a pleasure, even when it comes to nothing. And now, when it must come to something----” “That’s the difference, I suppose, between man and woman,” said Ronald, with a laugh. “I have no thought of any thing but one thing. I care nothing about plans. You, that are all made up of imagination, you shoot past and begin again. But me, I think only of getting my Lily, of having her for my own. I have neither plots nor plans in my head.” “It is a good thing, then, that women think of them, for we can’t do without them,” Lily said. But she was soothed and pleased that her bridegroom should have no thought but for herself. Perhaps this was what was most fit for the man. The woman had the outset to think of, the new house to live in, and every thing else that was involved. The reverse thought gives pleasure in other circumstances. There is no consistency in the reasonings of this period of life. “Let us go out now,” said Ronald; “the frost is hard, and it’s fine dry walking; we’ll get a turn round the moor, and then I will be off to the ‘toun’ to see the minister, and to-night I’ll come back and tell you all about it. Wrap up well, for it’s cold, but so bright that it does the heart good. But it is the day itself, and because it is the day, that does the heart most good,” he said, once more wrapping Lily up, close round her pretty throat, with the soft, voluminous folds of the plaid. The two faces so close together, the light in her eyes, the contagious happiness in his face, took every shadow from Lily’s heart. There had been no shadows, only a faint sort of floating gossamer, which had no meaning, and now it melted all away.