eyes out over the screech of a curlew--that has
been me all through life--I must be wondering at the hidden meanings
of things. The wind in the winter trees, the gossip of the rivers, the
trail of clouds, waves washing the shore at night--all these things have
a tremendous importance to me. And I must laugh to see my neighbours
making a to-do about a mercantile bargain. Well, I suppose it is the old
Highlands in me, as Miss Mary says." "I have felt a little of it in a
song," said Nan. "You could scarce do otherwise to sing them as you do,"
he answered. "I never heard you yet but you had the magic key for every
garden of fancy. One note, one phrase of yours comes up over and over
again that seems to me filled with the longings of thousand years."

He turned on her suddenly a face strenuous, eyes led with passion.

"I wish! I wish!" said he all fervent, "I wish could fathom the woman
within."

"Here she's on the surface," said Nan, a little impatiently, arranging
her flowers. And then she looked him straight in the eyes. "Ladyfield
seems a poor academy," she said, "if it taught you but to speculate on
things unfathomable. I always preferred the doer to the dreamer. The
mind of man is a far more interesting thing than the song of the river
I'm thinking, or the trailing of mist. And woman----" she laughed and
paused.

"Well?" He eyed her robust and wholesome figure.

"Should I expose my sex, John Hielan'man, or should I not?" she
reflected with an amused look in her face yet. "Never bother to look
below the surface for us," she said. "We are better pleased, and you
will speed the quicker to take us for what we seem. What matters of us
is--as it is with men too--plain enough on the surface. Dear, dear! what
nonsense to be on! You are far too much of the mist and mountain for me.
As if I had not plenty of them up in Maam! Oh! I grow sick of them!" She
began to walk faster, forgetting his company in the sudden remembrance
of her troubles; and he strode awkwardly at her heels, not very
dignified, like a menial overlooked. "They hang about the place like a
menace," said she. "No wonder mother died! If she was like me she must
have been heart-broken when father left her to face these solitudes."

"It is so, it is so," confessed the lad. "But they would not be
wearisome with love. With love in that valley it would smile like an
Indian plain."

"How do _you_ ken?" said she, stopping suddenly at this.

"It would make habit