as of a sweetness, poignant, intense. But in the
very act of recognizing this, there came upon him an old mood of
melancholy, an inner mist and chill, a gray languor and wanting. The
very bourgeoning and blossoming about him seemed to draw light from
him, not give light. "I brought the Kelpie's Pool back with me," he
thought. He shut his eyes, leaning his head against the stone, at last
with a sideward movement burying it in his folded arms. "More
life--more! What was a great current goes sluggish and landbound.
Where again is the open sea--the more--the boundless? Where
again--where again?"

He sat for an hour by the wild, singing stream. It drenched him, the
loved place and the sweet season, with its thousand store of beauties.
Its infinite number of touches brought at last response. The vague
crying and longing of nature hushed before a present lullaby. At last
he rose and went on with the calling stream.

The narrow path, set about with living green, with the spangly
flowers, and between the branches fragments of the blue lift as clear
as glass, led down the glen, widening now to hill and dale. Softening
and widening, the world laughed in May. The stream grew broad and
tranquil, with grassy shores overhung by green boughs. Here and there
the bank extended into the flood a little grassy cape edged with
violets. Alexander, following the spiral of the path, came upon the
view of such a spot as this. It lay just before him, a little below
his road. The stream washed its fairy beach. From the new grass rose
a blooming thorn-tree; beneath this knelt a girl and, resting upon her
hands, looked at her face in the water.

The laird of Glenfernie stood still. A drooping birch hid him; his
step had been upon moss and was not heard. The face and form upon the
bank, the face in the water, showed no consciousness of any human
neighbor. The face was that of a woman of perhaps twenty-four. The
hair was brown, the eyes brown. The head was beautifully placed on a
round, smooth throat. With a wide forehead, with great width between
the eyes, the face tapered to a small round chin. The mouth and under
the eyes smiled in a thousand different ways. The beauty that was
there was subtle, not discoverable by every one.--The girl settled
back upon the grass beneath the thorn-tree. She was very near
Glenfernie; he could see the rise and fall of her bosom beneath her
blue print gown. It was Elspeth Barrow--he knew her now, though he had
not