of me," said he.

"It is," she corrected meaningly.

"I never had any acquaintance with--with--girls," he added, trying to
find some excuse for himself.

"That is plain enough," she agreed cordially, and she followed it with a
sigh.

For a minute they stood thus irresolute and then the lad bent and lifted
the ill-used heather. He held it in his hand for a moment tenderly as if
it was a thing that lived, and sighed over it, and then, fearing that,
too, might seem absurd to her and vexatious, he made an effort and
twirled it between a finger and thumb by its stem like any casual
wild-flower culled without reflection.

"What are you going to do with it now?" she asked him, affecting
indifference, but eyeing it with interest; and he made no answer, for
how could he tell her he meant to keep it always for remembrance? "Give
it to me," she said suddenly, and took it from his fingers. She ran into
the house and placed it in the only fragment of earthenware left by the
departed tenants. "It will do very well there," she said.

"But I meant it for you," said Gilian ruefully, "It is a sign of good
luck."

"It is a sign of more than that, I've heard many a time," she replied,
and he became very red indeed, for he knew that as well as she, though
he had not said it. "I'll take it for the luck," she went on.

"And for mine too," said Gilian.

"That's not so blate, John Hielan'man!" said she again to herself. "And
for yours too," she conceded, smiling. "When you find that I have taken
it away from there you will know it is for your luck too."

"And it will be at your breast then?" he cried eagerly.

She laughed and blushed and laughed again, most sweetly and most merrily.
"It will be at--at--at my heart," she said.

"Ah," said he, in an instinct of fear that quelled his rapture; "ah, if
they take you from me!"

"When I take your heather," said she, "it will be for ever at my heart."

Oh! then that savage moorland was Paradise for the dreamer, and he was
a coquette's slave, fettered by a compliment. The afternoon passed, for
him at least, in a delirium of joy; she, though she never revealed it,
was never at a moment's rest from her plans of escape from her folly.
Late in the afternoon she came to a lame conclusion.

"You will go down to the town to-night," she said, "and----"

"And you!" he cried, alarmed at the notion of severance.

"I'll stay here, of course. You'll tell Miss Mary that we--that I am
here, and sh