“I wuss fowk”--he still spoke in Scotch in his own chamber-- “wad du as they’re tell’t, an’ no jeedge ane anither. I’m sure it’s Kelpie’s best chance o’ salvation ’at I gang on wi’ her. Stable-men wad ha’e had her brocken doon a’thegither by this time; an’ life wad ha’e had little relish left.” It added hugely to the bitterness of being thus rebuked, that he had never in his life seen such a radiance of beauty’s softest light as shone from the face and form of the reproving angel.-- “Only she canna be an angel,” he said to himself; “or she wad ha’e ken’t better.” She was young--not more than twenty, tall and graceful, with a touch of the matronly, which she must have had even in childhood, for it belonged to her--so staid, so stately was she in all her grace. With her brown hair, her lily complexion, her blue-gray eyes, she was all of the moonlight and its shadows--even now, in the early morning, and angry. Her nose was so nearly perfect that one never thought of it. Her mouth was rather large, but had gained in value of shape, and in the expression of indwelling sweetness, with every line that carried it beyond the measure of smallness. Most little mouths are pretty, some even lovely, but not one have I seen beautiful. Her forehead was the sweetest of half-moons. Of those who knew her best some absolutely believed that a radiance resembling moonlight shimmered from its precious expanse. “Be ye angry and sin not,” had always been a puzzle to Malcolm, who had, as I have said, inherited a certain Celtic fierceness; but now, even while he knew himself the object of the anger, he understood the word. It tried him sorely, however, that such gentleness and beauty should be unreasonable. Could it be that he should never have a chance of convincing her how mistaken she was concerning his treatment of Kelpie! What a celestial rosy red her face had glowed! and what summer lightnings had flashed up in her eyes, as if they had been the horizons of heavenly worlds up which flew the dreams that broke from the brain of a young sleeping goddess, to make the worlds glad also in the night of their slumber. Something like this Malcolm felt: whoever saw her must feel as he had never felt before. He gazed after her long and earnestly.