ers of other sisters was on its blade. That's my only grievance
with those soldier brothers of mine. I said I did not think much of the
soldiers; oh! boy, I love them all. I sometimes grieve that God made me
a woman that I might not be putting on the red coat too, and following
the drum. And still and on, I would have no son of mine a soldier.
Three fozy, foggy brothers--what did the armies do for them? They never
sharpened their wits, but they sit and dover and dream, dream, even-on,
never knowing all that's in their sister Mary's mind. And here you are,
a boy, yet you get to my thoughts in a flash. Oh! I think I am going to
be very fond of you."

Gilian was amazed that at last some one understood him. No one ever did
at Ladyfield; his dreams, his fancies, his spectacles of the inner eye
were things that he had grown ashamed of. But here was a shrewd little
lady who seemed to think his fancy and confidence nothing discreditable.
He was encouraged greatly to let her into his vagrant mind, so sometimes
in passionate outbursts, when the words ran over the heels of each
other, sometimes in shrinking, stammering, reluctant sentences he told
her how the seasons affected him, and the morning and the night, the
smells of things, the sounds of woods and the splash of waters, and the
mists streaming along the ravines. He told her--or rather he made her
understand, for his language was simple--how at sudden outer influences
his whole being fired, and from so trivial a thing as a cast-off
horseshoe on the highway he was compelled to picture the rider, and set
him upon the saddle and go riding with him to the King of Erin's court
that is in the story of the third son of Easadh Ruadh in the winter
tale. How the joy of the swallow was his in its first darting flights
among the eaves of the old barn, and how when it sped at the summer's
end he went with it across shires and towns, along the surface of
winding rivers, even over the seas to the land of everlasting sun. How
the sound of the wave on the rock moved him and set him with the ships
and galleys, the great venturers whipping and creaking and tossing in
the night-time under the stars. How the dark appalled or soothed as the
humour was, and the right of a first flower upon a tree would sometimes
make him weep at the notion of the brevity of its period.

All the time Miss Mary listened patient and understanding. The
high-backed chair compassed her figure so fully that she seemed t