"No, no, I am not one of those that would promote any rivalry between Scotland and England. We are one country now. If the Scotch preserve the best leeterary English—the most pithy and characteristic forms of the language—the English that is talked in the south is the most generally received throughout the world. I have even gone the length—I’m no ashamed to admit it—of hinting to Tom Galbraith that he should exheebit more in London: the influence of such work as his should not be confined to Edinburgh. And jealous as they may be in the south of the Scotch school, they could not refuse to recognise its excellence—eh? No, no; when Galbraith likes to exheebit in London, ye’ll hear a stir, I’m thinking. The jealousy of English artists will have no effect on public opeenion. They may keep him out o’ the Academy—there’s many a good artist has never been within the walls—but the public is the judge. I am told that when his picture of _Stonebyres Falls_ was exheebited in Edinburgh, a dealer came all the way from London to look at it." "Did he buy it?" asked Miss Avon, gently. "Buy it!" the Laird said, with a contemptuous laugh. "There are some of us about Glasgow who know better than to let a picture like that get to London. I bought it myself. Ye’ll see it when ye come to Denny-mains. Ye have heard of it, no doubt?" "N—no, I think not," she timidly answers. "No matter—no matter. Ye’ll see it when ye come to Denny-mains." He seemed to take it for granted that she was going to pay a visit to Denny-mains: had he not heard, then, of her intention of at once returning to London? Once well round into the Frith of Lorn, the wind that had borne us down the Sound of Iona was now right ahead; and our progress was but slow. As the evening wore on, it was proposed that we should run into Loch Speliv for the night. There was no dissentient voice. The sudden change from the plunging seas without to the quiet waters of the solitary little loch was strange enough. And then, as we slowly beat up against the northerly wind to the head of the loch—a beautiful, quiet, sheltered little cup of a harbour among the hills—we found before us, or rather over us, the splendours of a stormy sunset among the mountains above Glen More. It was a striking spectacle—the vast and silent gloom of the valleys below, which were of a cold and intense green in the shadow; then above, among the great shoulders and peaks of the hills, flashing gleams of golden light, and long swathes of purple cloud touched with scarlet along their edges, and mists of rain that came along with the wind, blotting out here and there those splendid colours. There was an absolute silence in this overshadowed bay—but for the cry of the startled wild-fowl. There was no sign of any habitation, except perhaps a trace of pale blue smoke rising from behind a mass of trees. Away went the anchor with a short, sharp rattle; we were safe for the night.