ty has been that of
her mother, who educated her and tended her, and left her as ignorant of
the real world as if she had lived all her life in a lighthouse.
Goodness gracious! what a figure such a girl would cut in South
Kensington!"

"My dear fellow," said Ingram at last, "don't be absurd. You will soon
see what are the relations between Sheila Mackenzie and me, and you will
be satisfied. I marry her? Do you think I would take the child to London
to show her its extravagance and shallow society, and break her heart
with thinking of the sea, and of the rude islanders she knew, and of
their hard and bitter struggle for life? No. I should not like to see my
wild Highland doe shut up in one of your southern parks among your tame
fallow-deer. She would look at them askance. She would separate herself
from them; and by and by she would make one wild effort to escape, and
kill herself. That is not the fate in store for our good little Sheila;
so you need not make yourself unhappy about her or me.

'Now all ye young men, of every persuasion,
Never quarl wi' your vather upon any occasion;
For instead of being better, you'll vind you'll be wuss,
For he'll kick you out o' doors, without a varden in your puss!
Diddle-diddle!'

Talking of Devonshire, how is that young American lady you met at
Torquay in the spring?"

"There, now, is the sort of woman a man would be safe in marrying!"

"And how?"

"Oh, well, you know," said Frank Lavender. "I mean the sort of woman who
would do you credit--hold her own in society, and that sort of thing.
You must meet her some day. I tell you, Ingram, you will be delighted
and charmed with her manners and her grace, and the clever things she
says; at least, everybody else is."

"Ah, well!"

"You don't seem to care much for brilliant women," remarked the other,
rather disappointed that his companion showed so little interest.

"Oh yes, I like brilliant women very well. A clever woman is always a
pleasanter companion than a clever man. But you were talking of the
choice of a wife; and pertness in a girl, although it may be amusing at
the time, may become something else by and by. Indeed, I shouldn't
advise a young man to marry an epigrammatist, for you see her shrewdness
and smartness are generally the result of experiences in which _he_ has
had no share."

"There may be something in that," said Lavender carelessly; "but of
course, you know, with