s owing to Miss McDonald. I cannot get the plaids and tartans
and Jacobins and castles and what-not out of my head. Our landscapes are
just landscapes."

"But don't you think we are putting history and association into them
pretty fast?"

"Yes, I know, but that takes a long time. I mean now. Take this lovely
valley and region, how easily it could be made romantic."

"Not so very easy, I fancy."

"Well, I was thinking about it last night." And then, as if she saw a
clear connection between this and what she was going to say, "Miss
McDonald says, Mr. Burnett, that you are a writer."

"I? Why, I'm, I'm--a lawyer."

"Of course, that's business. That reminds me of what papa said once:
'It's lucky there is so much law, or half the world, including the
lawyers, wouldn't have anything to do, trying to get around it and evade
it.' And you won't mind my repeating it--I was a mite of a girl--I said,
'Isn't that rather sophistical, papa?' And mamma put me down'--It seems
to me, child, you are using pretty big words.'"

They both laughed. But suddenly Evelyn added:

"Why don't you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Write a story about it--what Miss McDonald calls 'invest the region with
romance.'"

The appeal was very direct, and it was enforced by those wonderful eyes
that seemed to Philip to discern his powers, as he felt them, and his
ambitions, and to express absolute confidence in him. His vanity was
touched in its most susceptible spot. Here seemed to be a woman, nay, a
soul, who understood him, understood him even better than Celia, the
lifelong confidante. It is a fatal moment for men and women, that in
which they feel the subtle flattery of being understood by one of the
opposite sex. Philip's estimation of himself rose 'pari passu' with his
recognition of the discernment and intellectual quality of the frank and
fascinating girl who seemed to believe in him. But he restrained himself
and only asked, after a moment of apparent reflection upon the general
proposition:

"Well, Miss Mavick, you have been here some time. Have you discovered
any material for such use?"

"Why, perhaps not, and I might not know what to do with it if I had. But
perhaps you don't mean what I mean. I mean something fitting the
setting. Not the domestic novel. Miss McDonald says we are vulgarized
in all our ideals by so much domesticity. She says that Jennie Deans
would have been just an ordinary, commonplace girl but for Walter Scott."

"Then y