affected manner taught in Edinburgh
schools.

"Sir," she said, "you are a soldier, and of course the gown at the
moment in front of you is always the finest in the world. Don't tell me
it is not so," she hastened to add, as he made to protest, "because I
know my father and all the ways of his trade, and--and--and if you were
not the soldier even in your pleasantries to ladies I would not think
you the soldier at all."

The General smiled and nudged the young fellow jocosely. "There," said
he, "did I not tell you she was a fiery one?"

"I hope you did not discuss me in that fashion," said Nan, pausing with
annoyance as she moved aside a little, all her pride leaping to her
face.

"Your father will have his joke," said Young Islay quickly. "He barely
let me know you were here."

The General smiled again in admiration of the young fellow's astuteness,
and Nan recovered.

They went to the parlour. Through the window came the songs of the
reapers and the twitter of birds busy among the seeds at the barn-door.
Roses swinging on the porch threw a perfume into the room. Young Islay
felt, for the first time in his life, a sense of placid happiness. And
when Nan sang later--a newer, wider world, more years, more thoughts,
more profound depths in her song--he was captive.

To his aid he summoned all his confidence; he talked like a prince (if
they talk head-up, valiantly, serene and possessing); he moved about the
room studiously unconscious and manly; he sat with grace and showed his
hand, and all the time he claimed the girl for his. "You are mine, you
are mine!" he said to himself over and over again, and by the flush on
her neck as she sat at the harpsichord she might be hearing, through
some magic sense, his bold unspoken thought.

Evening crept, lights came, the father went out to give some orders at
the barn; they were left alone. The instrument that might have been a
heavenly harp at once lost its dignity and relapsed to a tinkling wire,
for Nan was silent, and there crowded into Young Islay's head all the
passion of his people. He rose and strode across the room; he put an arm
round her waist and raised her, all astounded, from the chair.

She turned round and tried to draw back, looking startled at his eyes
that were wide with fire.

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"Need you ask it?" he said in a new voice, raising an arm round her
shoulder. His fingers unexpectedly touched her warm skin beneath the
kerch