And when the sun was high over the moor and every thing shining, not too hot nor too bright, the tempered and still-breathing noon of the North, Lily set out upon her pony with the basket by her saddle, and all the world smiling and inviting before her. Never had such a daring and delightful holiday dawned upon her before. Almost a whole day to spend together, Ronald all that she dreamed, and not an inquisitive or unkindly eye to look upon them, not even Beenie to disturb their absorption in each other. She waved her whip in salutation to the others behind as they stood watching her set out. “A bonnie day to ye, Miss Lily,” cried Katrin. “And you’ll no be late?” said anxious Beenie. “’Od,” cried Dougal, with his cap on his ear, “I wish I had just put off thae potataies and gone with her mysel’----” “Ye fuil!” said his wife, and said no further word. And Lily rode away in heavenly content and expectation over the moor. CHAPTER XIII The day was one of those Highland days which are a dream of freshness and beauty and delight. I do not claim that they are very frequent, but sometimes they will occur in a cluster, two or three together, like a special benediction out of heaven. The sun has a purity, a clearness, an ecstasy of light which it has nowhere else. It looks, as it were, with a heavenly compunction upon earth and sky, as if to make up for the many days when it is absent, expanding over mountain and moor with a smiling which seems personal and full of intention. The air is life itself, uncontaminated with any evil emanation, full of the warmth of the sun, and the odor of the fir-trees and heather, and the murmur of all the living things about. The damp and dew which linger in the shady places disappear as if by magic. No unkindly creature, no venomous thing, is abroad; no noise, no jar of living, though every thing lives and grows and makes progress with such silent and smiling vigor. The two lovers in the midst of this incense-breathing nature, so still, yet so strong, so peaceful, yet so vigorous, felt that the scene was made for them, that no surroundings could have been more fitly prepared and tempered for the group which was as the group in Eden before trouble came. They wandered about together through the glen, and by the side of the shining brown trout stream, which glowed and smiled among the rocks, reflecting every ray and every cloud as it hurried and sparkled along, always in haste, yet always at leisure. They lingered here and there, in a spot which was still more beautiful than all the others, though not so beautiful as the next, which tempted them a little further on. Sometimes Ronald’s rod was taken out and screwed together; sometimes even flung over a dark pool, where there were driftings and leapings of trout, but pulled in again before, as Lily said, any harm was done. “For why should any peaceful creature get a sharp hook in its jaw because you and me are happy?” she said.