"I rose," returned Ralph, "certainly betimes--in fact, a great while before day; it is the time when one can best know one's self." The sententiousness, natural to his years and education, to some extent rebuked Winsome, who said more soberly: "Perhaps you have again lost your books of study?" "I do not always study in books," answered Ralph. Winsome continued to look at him as though waiting his explanation. "I mean," said Ralph, quickly, his pale cheek touched with red, "that though I am town-bred I love the things that wander among the flowers and in the wood. There are the birds, too, and the little green plants that have no flow ers, and they all have a message, if I could only hear it and understand it." The sparkle in Winsome's eyes quieted into calm. "I too--" she began, and paused as if startled at what she was about to say. She went on: "I never heard any one say things like these. I did not know that any one else had thoughts like these except myself." "And have you thought these things?" said Ralph, with a quick joy in his heart. "Yes," replied Winsome, looking down on the ground and playing with the loose string of the lilac sunbonnet. "I used often to wonder how it was that I could not look on the loch on Sabbath morning without feeling like crying. It was often better to look upon it than to go to Maister Welsh's kirk. But I ought not to say these things to you," she said, with a quick thought of his profession. Ralph smiled. There were few things that Winsome Charteris might not say to him. He too had his experiences to collate. "Have you ever stood on a hill-top as though you were suspended in the air, and when you seem to feel the earth whirling away from beneath you, rushing swiftly eastward towards the sunrise?" "I have heard it," said Winsome unexpectedly. "Heard it?" queried Ralph, with doubt in his voice. "Yes," said Winsome calmly, "I have often heard the earth wheeling round on still nights out on the top of the Craigs, where there was no sound, and all the house was asleep. It is as if some Great One were saying 'Hush!' to the angels--I think God himself!" These were not the opinions of the kirk of the Marrow; neither were they expressed in the Acts Declaratory or the protests or claims of right made by the faithful contending remnant. But Ralph would not at that moment have hesitated to add them to the Westminster Confession. It is a wonderful thing to be young. It is marvellously delightful to be young and a poet as well, who has just fallen--nay, rather, plunged fathoms--deep in love. Ralph Peden was both. He stood watching Winsome Charteris, who looked past him into a distance moistly washed with tender ultramarine ash, like her own eyes too full of colour to be gray and too pearly clear to be blue.