orld; and had not this princess
among women taken his hand for a moment as a childlike way of expressing
her thanks, while her eyes spoke more than her lips? And the more he
looked at those eyes, the more he grew to despair of ever being able to
put down the magic of them in lines and colors.

At length Duncan got the boat into the small creek at Callernish, and
the party got out on the shore. As they were going up the steep path
leading to the plain above a young girl met them, who looked at them in
rather a strange way. She had a fair, pretty, wondering face, with
singularly high eyebrows and clear, light-blue eyes.

"How are you, Eily?" said Mackenzie as he passed on with Ingram.

But Sheila, on making the same inquiry, shook hands with the girl, who
smiled in a confidential way, and, coming quite close, nodded and
pointed down to the water's edge.

"Have you seen them to-day, Eily?" said Sheila, still holding the girl
by the hands, and looking at the fair, pretty, strange face.

"It wass sa day before yesterday," she answered in a whisper, while a
pleased smile appeared on her face, "and sey will be here sa night."

"Good-bye, Eily: take care you don't stay out at night and catch cold,
you know," said Sheila; and then, with another little nod and a smile,
the young girl went down the path.

"It is Eily-of-the-Ghosts, as they call her," said Sheila to Lavender as
they went on: "the poor thing fancies she sees little people about the
rocks, and watches for them. But she is very good and quiet, and she is
not afraid of them, and she does no harm to any one. She does not belong
to the Lewis--I think she is from Islay--but she sometimes comes to pay
us a visit at Borva, and my papa is very kind to her."

"Mr. Ingram does not appear to know her: I thought he was acquainted
with every one in the island," said Lavender.

"She was not here when he has been in the Lewis before," said Sheila;
"but Eily does not like to speak to strangers, and I do not think you
could get her to speak to you if you tried."

Lavender had paid but little attention to the "false men" of Callernish
when first he saw them, but now he approached the long lines of big
stones up on this lonely plateau with a new interest; for Sheila had
talked to him about them many a time in Borva, and had asked his opinion
about their origin and their age. Was the central circle of stones an
altar, with the other series marking the approaches to it? Or was