And then—well, Ronald was going away. Was it worth while to let pride or self-love come between them and becloud these last few days, when perhaps they might never see each other again? For well she knew of her mother’s aims and hopes with regard to herself; and well she knew that—whatever she may have guessed from the verses of Ronald’s which assuredly had never been meant for her to see—it was neither for him nor for her to expect that the harsh facts and necessities of the world should give place and yield to a passing fancy, a dream, a kind of wistful, half-poetic shadow of what otherwise might have been. But at least Ronald and she might part friends; nay, they should part friends. And so she returned to the table—overmastering her momentary pride; and she took up the discarded little drawing and regarded it with gentler eyes. For, after all (as she could not forget) Ronald was going away. *CHAPTER VI.* *POETA ... NON FIT.* It soon became obvious that the salmon-fishers from the other side of the Atlantic had got into a long spell of deplorably fine weather; and a gentle melancholy settled down upon the souls of the gillies. In vain, morning after morning, the men searched every quarter of the heavens for any sign of even a couple of days’ deluge to flood the rivers and send the kelts down and bring the clean salmon up from the sea. This wild and bleak region grew to be like some soft summer fairyland; the blue loch and the yellow headlands, and the far treeless stretches of moor lay basking in the sunlight; Ben Loyal’s purples and browns were clear to the summit; Ben Clebrig’s snows had nearly all melted away. Nor could the discontented boatmen understand how the two strangers should accept this state of affairs with apparent equanimity. Both were now provided with a book; and when the rods had been properly set so as to be ready for any emergency, they could pass the time pleasantly enough in this perfect stillness, gliding over the smooth waters, and drinking in the sweet mountain air. As for Miss Carry, she had again attacked the first volume of Gibbon—for she would hot be beaten; and very startling indeed it was when a fish did happen to strike the minnow, to be so suddenly summoned back from Palmyra to this Highland loch. In perfect silence, with eyes and attention all absented, she would be reading thus—