ted by that intervening
shape; but, as his vision wandered along the vast reaches of illimitable
clouds and the glorious gulfs of sky, his mind yielded itself the rather
to the beauty and light. More dusky grew the purple of the upper mists
whose upright layers, like league-long wings of softest feather held
edge downward to the earth, ever changed in form without apparent
movement. More sparkling glowed the gold upon their edges. The sky
beneath the cloud was now like emerald. The soft darkness of purple
slate was on the hills. The lake took on a darker shade, and daylight
began to fade from the upper blue.

It was only perhaps a moment--one of those moments for which time has no
measurement--that the soul of this man had gone out of him, as it were,
into the vastness of the sunset; and when he recalled it his situation
took on for him a somewhat different aspect. He experienced something of
that temporary relief from personal responsibility that moments of
religious sentiment often give to minds that are unaccustomed to
religion. He had been free for the time to disport himself in something
infinitely larger and wider than his little world, and he took up his
duty at the point at which he had left it with something of this sense
of freedom lingering with him.

He was a good man--that is, a man whose face would have made it clear to
any true observer that he habitually did the right in contradistinction
to the wrong. He was, moreover, religious, and would not have been
likely to fall into any delusion of mere sentiment in the region of
religious emotion. But that which deludes a man commonly comes through a
safe channel. As a matter of fact, the excitement which the delight of
the eye had produced in him was a perfectly wholesome feeling, but the
largeness of heart it gave him at that moment was unfortunate.

The girl stood just as before, ungainly and without power of expression
because undeveloped, but excitation of thought made what she might
become apparent to him in that which she was. He became more generous
towards her, more loving.

"Don't greet, that's a good lassie," he said soothingly. "There's truth
in what ye have said--that it's dull for ye here because ye have nothing
to look ahead to. Well, I'll tell ye what I didn't mean to tell ye while
ye are so young--when ye're older, if ye're a good lassie and go on
learning your lessons as ye have been doing, I will ask ye to marry me,
and then (we hope of co