Before Winsome Charteris could release her hand, Ralph turned and said: "Do you know you have not yet told me your name?" Winsome did know it very well, but she only said, "My name is Winsome Charteris, and this is Meg Kissock." "Winsome Charteris, Winsome Charteris," said Ralph's heart over and over again, and he had not even the grace to say "Thank you"; but Meg stepped up to shake him by the hand. "I'm braw an' prood to ken ye, sir," said Meg. "That muckle sumph [stupid], Saunders Mowdiewort, telled me a' aboot ye comin' an' the terrible store o' lear [learning] ye hae. He's the minister's man, ye ken, an' howks the graves ower by at the parish kirk-yard, for the auld betheral there winna gang ablow three fit deep, and them that haes ill-tongued wives to haud doon disna want ony mistake--" "Meg," said her mistress, "do not forget yourself." "Deil a fear," said Meg; "it was auld Sim o' Glower-ower-'em, the wizened auld hurcheon [hedgehog], that set a big thruch stane ower his first wife; and when he buried his second in the neist grave, he just turned the broad flat stone. 'Guid be thankit!' he says, 'I had the forethocth to order a stane heavy eneuch to hand them baith doon!'" "Get to the washing, Meg," said Winsome. "Fegs!" returned Meg, "ye waur in nae great hurry yersel' doon aff the broomy knowe! What's a' the steer sae sudden like?" Winsome disdained an answer, but stood to her own tub, where some of the lighter articles--pillow-slips, and fair sheets of "seventeen-hundred" linen were waiting her daintier hand. As Winsome and Meg washed, Ralph Peden carried water, learning the wondrous science of carrying two cans over a wooden hoop; and in the frankest tutelage Winsome put her hand over his to teach him, and the relation of master and pupil asserted its ancient danger. It had not happened to Winsome Charteris to meet any one to whom she was attracted with such frank liking. She had never known what it was to have a brother, and she thought that this clear-eyed young man might be a brother to her. It is a fallacy common among girls that young men desire them as sisters. Ralph himself was under no such illusion, or at least would not have been, had he had the firmness of mind to sit down half a mile from his emotions and coolly look them over. But in the meanwhile he was only conscious of a great and rising delight in his heart. As Winsome Charteris bent above the wash-tub he was at liberty to observe how the blood mantled on the clear oval of her cheek. He had time to note--of course entirely as a philosopher--the pale purple shadow under the eyes, over which the dark, curling lashes came down like the fringe of the curtain of night. "Why--I wonder why?" he said, and stopped aghast at his utterance aloud of his inmost thought. "What do you wonder?" said Winsome, glancing up with a frank dewy freshness in her eyes.