ad her there beside me. Catriona, do you
see this napkin at my throat? You cut a corner from it once and then
cast it from you. They're _your_ colours now; I wear them in my heart.
My dear, I cannot want you. O, try to put up with me!"

I stepped before her so as to intercept her walking on.

"Try to put up with me," I was saying, "try and bear me with a little."

Still she had never the word, and a fear began to rise in me like a fear
of death.

"Catriona," I cried, gazing on her hard, "is it a mistake again? Am I
quite lost?"

She raised her face to me, breathless.

"Do you want me, Davie, truly?" said she, and I scarce could hear her
say it.

"I do that," said I. "O, sure you know it--I do that."

"I have nothing left to give or to keep back," said she. "I was all
yours from the first day, if you would have had a gift of me!" she said.

This was on the summit of a brae; the place was windy and conspicuous,
we were to be seen there even from the English ship; but I kneeled down
before her in the sand, and embraced her knees, and burst into that
storm of weeping that I thought it must have broken me. All thought was
wholly beaten from my mind by the vehemency of my discomposure. I knew
not where I was, I had forgot why I was happy; only I knew she stooped,
and I felt her cherish me to her face and bosom, and heard her words out
of a whirl.

"Davie," she was saying, "O, Davie, is this what you think of me? Is it
so that you were caring for poor me? O, Davie, Davie!"

With that she wept also, and our tears were commingled in a perfect
gladness.

It might have been ten in the day before I came to a clear sense of what
a mercy had befallen me; and sitting over against her, with her hands in
mine, gazed in her face, and laughed out loud for pleasure like a child,
and called her foolish and kind names. I have never seen the place look
so pretty as these bents by Dunkirk; and the windmill sails, as they
bobbed over the knowe, were like a tune of music.

I know not how much longer we might have continued to forget all else
besides ourselves, had I not chanced upon a reference to her father,
which brought us to reality.

"My little friend," I was calling her again and again, rejoicing to
summon up the past by the sound of it, and to gaze across on her, and to
be a little distant--"My little friend, now you are mine altogether;
mine for good, my little friend; and that man's no longer at all."

There came a su