"

"Every bit of it."

Her fan spelt Kenneth on the door.

"Sometimes," she went on softly, "a fancy is built on moonlight and
laughing eyes and opportunity. It iss like sunshine in winter on
Raasay--just for an hour and then the mists fall."

"For our love there will be no mists."

"Ah, Kenn, you think so now, but afterward, when you take up again your
London life, and I cannot play the lady of fashion, when you weary of my
simpleness and are wishing me back among the purple heather hills?"

"That will be never, unless I wish myself there with you. I am no London
Mohawk like Volney. To tramp the heather after muircocks or to ride to
hounds is more my fancy. The Macaronis and I came long since to the
parting of the ways. I am for a snug home in the country with the woman I
love."

I stepped to the table, filled a glass with wine, and brought it to her.

"Come, love! We will drink together. How is it old Ben Jonson hath it?

"'Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth seek a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sup
I would not change from thine.'

"Drink, sweetheart."

She tasted, then I drained the glass and let it fall from my fingers to
shiver on the floor.

Before we parted Aileen had one more word for me, "Kennie."

"Yes, dear heart," I cried, and was back at her side in a moment.

"What you said in the woods--I am knowing it all true. It is great
foolishness, but my heart is singing the same song," and with that she
whipped the door to in my face.

I sauntered into the common room, found a seat by the fireplace, and let
my eye wander over the company. There were present some half dozen yokels,
the vicar's curate, a country blood or two, and a little withered runt of
a man in fustian with a weazened face like a wrinkled pippin. The moment I
clapped eyes on him there came to my mind the dim recollection of a former
acquaintance and the prescient fear of an impending danger. That I had
seen him I was ready to take oath, yet I could not put my finger upon the
circumstances. But the worst of it was that the old fellow recognized me,
unless I were much mistaken, for his eyes never left me from the first.

From my mother I have inherited