is a very discerning and agreeable person, and
I shall go and talk to him." And away went Valencia to Elsley, somewhat
cross. Woman-like, she allowed, for the sake of her sister's honour, no
one but herself to depreciate Vavasour, and chose to think it
impertinent on Headley's part.

Headley began quietly talking to Major Campbell about botany, while
Valencia, a little ashamed of herself all the while, took her revenge on
Elsley by scolding him for his unsocial ways, in the very terms which
Headley had been using.

At last Claude, having finished his photographing, departed downward to
get some new view from the road below, and Lucia returned to the rest of
the party. Valencia joined them at once, bringing up Elsley, who was not
in the best of humours after her diatribes; and the whole party wandered
about the woodland, and scrambled down beside the torrent beds.

At last they came to a point where they could descend no further; for
the stream, falling over a cliff, had worn itself a narrow chasm in the
rock, and thundered down it into a deep narrow pool.

Lucia, who was basking in the sunshine and the flowers as simple as a
child, would needs peep over the brink, and made Elsley hold her while
she looked down. A quiet happiness, as of old recollections, came into
her eyes, as she watched the sparkling and foaming water--

"And beauty, born of murmuring sound,
Did pass into her face."

Campbell started. The Lucia of seven years ago seemed to bloom out
again in that pale face and wrinkled forehead; and a smile came over his
face, too, as he looked.

"Just like the dear old waterfall at Kilanbaggan. You recollect it,
Major Campbell?"

Elsley always disliked recollections of Kilanbaggan; recollections of
her life before he knew her; recollections of pleasures in which he had
not shared: especially recollections of her old acquaintance with the
Major.

"I do not, I am ashamed to say," replied the Major.

"Why, you were there a whole summer. Ah! I suppose you thought about
nothing but your salmon fishing. If Elsley had been there he would not
have forgotten a rock or a pool. Would you, Elsley?"

"Really, in spite of all salmon, I have not forgotten a rock or a pool
about the place which I ever saw: but at the waterfall I never was."

"So he has not forgotten? What cause had he to remember so carefully?"
thought Elsley.

"Oh, Elsley, look! What is that exquisite flower, like a ball of gold,
hanging just o