"Well, if I were to tell you a parable, a parable of my own, as you once told me one of yours, what would happen?" "I'm sure I don't know," she laughed, "but why trouble about what may happen? A little risk gives a spice to life, and, anyhow, it can mostly be run away from at the last moment!" "Then," said I, fairly and warmly hit by that, "it is the parable of a maid and a man, the old, old story, in a new setting. They met under cross circumstances, when things around them were difficult and their families took separate sides in politics and war. But if it had not been those very troubles they might never have met, or, what is even worse, have met too late, as maids and men often do. Perhaps trouble, because it brought them together in sympathy, also began to bring them together in heart, that being one road to affection. Love at first sight? Yes, for a winning face, an elegant figure, a silvery voice, or even a shapely foot. But that, surely, is the stuff of passion which may bloom in the morning and fade at night, not love the enduring as, I promise you, in my parable." Marget nodded her head, unconsciously, as if some far voice were calling to her from the spreading country of red heath and green fir-trees, of dancing sunshine and rippling stream, that lay beneath us. She did not speak, and I went on: "You do not in parables say much of people, and never by name, but I must tell you of my maid, the man, and of the other man who came between them--nearly! She was all simple charm, yet also of pulsing womanliness, the healthy product of a country life, a fair survival of many ordeals. Deep in her nature was that intense power of feeling which belongs to complete womanhood, as music belongs to an ancient fiddle. There were strings so sweet and subtle, so strange and strong, that she herself feared to play on them, and when the man appeared she greeted him as a friend, nothing more." Marget waited as I paused, for when one's heart is in one's mouth words are hard to find, and I am not much in command of them at any time. "The man," I resumed, "what shall I say of him, for he had no personal history. He had an old name, however, which he hoped not to sully, and he bent himself quietly to duty, as, crookedly and undesirably, it came his way. He found no call to do great things of the world, but rather to straighten out the small things of a wee corner of it, and there to keep the peace. The maid just came into his life, and he, in his plain way, thanked Providence and held his tongue, except when secrets would half slip out and tell-tale acts come about." Marget made no sign as to whether or not she recognized the portrait, and thus I was brought up abruptly against the other man of our parable.