t flower, that he did not
notice how far he had given up his secret.

He caught the hand and fondled it, and still she repeated to herself
like a coronach, "Islay, Islay." For once more the rude arm was round
her waist in Maam, and the bold soldier was kissing her on the lips.

Gilian stood up and "Oh!" he cried, as he looked from her to the
landscape, and back from the landscape to her again, "Oh!" he cried, "I
wondered, when you were gone in Edinburgh, what was wanting here. When
Miss Mary told me you were come home, I felt it was the first time the
sun had shone, and the birds had found a song."

"Young Islay!" she still was thinking, hearing the dreamer but to
compare him with the practitioner she knew.

And then the dreamer, remembering that his question was still unput,
uttered it shyly and awkwardly. "Do you love me?" said he.

It was for this she had fled from Young Islay, who knew his mind and had
no fear to speak it!

"Do I love you?" she repeated. "Are you not too hasty?"

"Am I?" he said, alarmed. And she sighed.

"Oh yes, of course you are! You know so little of me. You have taken me
from my father's house by a ladder at night, and share a moor with me,
and you know I have no friend to turn to in the world but yourself. You
have eyes and ears, and still you must be asking if it is not hasty to
find out if I love you. It is a wonder you have the boldness to say the
word itself."

"Well," he pursued gawkily, though he perceived her drift clearly, "here
I am, and I do love you. Oh, what a poor word it is, that love, for the
fire I feel inside me. There is no word for that, there is nothing but a
song for it that some day I must be making. Love, quo' she; oh, I could
say that truly of the heather kissing your hand, ay, of the glaur your
feet might walk on upon a wet day!"

"My best respects to you, Master Gilian!" said Nan. "You have the fine
tongue in your head after all. What a pity we have been wasting such a
grand opportunity for it here!" and there was an indulgence in her eye,
though now and then the numb regret of a blunder made came upon her
spirit.

"Will you come down with me?" he went on, far too precipitate for her
fancy.

"When?" she asked, thoughtlessly robbing a heather-tuft bell by bell
with idle fingers.

"Now; Miss Mary expects us this evening."

"Miss Mary!" said she, a little amused and annoyed. "You would never
have come to the bit but for her."

"Perhaps not," he confes