, he was rather proud of
considering himself an observer of life. He stood aside as a spectator,
and let other people, engaged in all manner of eager pursuits, pass
before him for review. Toward young folks, indeed, he assumed a
good-naturedly paternal air, as if they were but as shy-faced children
to be humored. Were not their love-affairs a pretty spectacle? As for
himself, he was far beyond all that. The illusions of love-making, the
devotion and ambition and dreams of courtship, were no longer possible
to him, but did they not constitute on the whole a beautiful and
charming study, that had about it at times some little touches of
pathos? At odd moments, when he saw Sheila and Lavender walking together
in the evening, he was himself half inclined to wish that something
might come of the young man's determination. It would be so pleasant to
play the part of a friendly counselor, to humor the follies of the young
folks, to make jokes at their expense, and then, in the midst of their
embarrassment and resentment, to go forward and pet them a little, and
assure them of a real and earnest sympathy.

"Your time is to come," Lavender said to him suddenly after he had been
exhibiting some of his paternal forbearance and consideration: "you will
get a dreadful twist some day, my boy. You have been doing nothing but
dreaming about women, but some day or other you will wake up to find
yourself captured and fascinated beyond anything you have ever seen in
other people, and then you will discover what a desperately real thing
it is."

Ingram had a misty impression that he had heard something like this
before. Had he not given Lavender some warning of the same kind? But he
was so much accustomed to hear those vague repetitions of his own
remarks, and was, on the whole, so well pleased to think that his
commonplace notions should take root and flourish in this goodly soil,
that he never thought of asking Lavender to quote his authority for
those profound observations on men and things.

"Now, Miss Mackenzie," said the young man as the big boat was drawing
near to Callernish, "what is to be our first sketch in Lewis?"

"The Callernish Stones, of course," said Mackenzie himself: "it iss
more than one hass come to the Lewis to see the Callernish Stones."

Lavender had promised to the King of Borva a series of water-color
drawings of Lewis, and Sheila was to choose the subjects from day to
day. Mackenzie was gratified by this pro