ked upon the two glens severed by so
many weary miles of roadway, but close together at his feet. And the
chimneys of Maam (that looks so like an ancient castle at Dim Loch head)
were smoking cheerily below. Looking down upon them he made a pretence
to himself after a little that he had just that moment remembered who
was now there. He even said the words to himself, "Oh! Nan--Miss Nan is
there!" in the tone of sudden recollection, and he flushed in the cold
breeze of the lonely mountain, half at the mention of the name, half at
his own deceit with himself.

He allowed himself to fancy what the girl had grown to in her three
years' absence among Lowland influences, that, by all his reading, must
be miraculous indeed. He saw her a little older only than she had been
when they sat in the den of the _Jean_ or walked a magic garden, the
toss of spate-brown hair longer upon her shoulders, a little more
sedateness in her mien. About her still hung the perfume of young birch,
and her gown was still no lower than her knees. He met her (still in his
imagination upon the hill-top) by some rare chance, in the garden where
they had strayed, and his coolness and ease were a marvel to himself.

"Miss Nan!" he cried. "They told me you were returned and----" What was
to follow of the sentence he could not just now say.

She blushed to see him; his hand tingled at the contact with hers. She
answered in a pleasant tone of Edinburgh gentility, like Lady Charlotte,
and they walked a little way together, conversing wondrously upon life
and books and poems, whose secrets they shared between them. He was able
to hold her fascinated by the sparkle of his talk; he had never before
felt so much the master of himself, and his head fairly hummed with high
notions. They talked of their childhood----

Here Gilian dropped from the clouds, at first with a sense of some
unpleasant memory undefined, then with shivering, ashamed, as his last
meeting with the girl flashed before him, and he saw himself again
fleeing, an incapable, from the sea-beach at Ealan Dubh.

If she should remember that so vividly as he did! The thought was one to
fly from, and he sped down the hill furiously, and plied himself busily
for the remainder of the day with an industry Cameron had never seen him
show before. Upon him had obviously come a change of some wholesome and
compelling kind. He knew it himself, and yet--he told himself--he could
not say what it was.

Sunday