and hear
every note of her lark's voice. He did not mistake what had happened to
him. Middle-aged, inexperienced, sober-souled man as he was, he knew
that at last he had got a wound,--a life wound, if it were not
healed,--and the consciousness of it struck him more and more dumb, till
his presence was like a damper on the festivities; so much so, that when
at three in the afternoon he and Katie took their departure, the door
had no more than closed on them before Elspie exclaimed pettishly: "An'
indeed I wish Katie'd left Cousin Donald behind. I don't know what it is
she thinks so much of him for. She's always sayin' there's none like
him; an' it's lucky it's true. The great glowerin' steeple o' a man,
with no word in his mouth!" And the young maidens all agreed with her.
It was a strange thing for a man to come and go like that, with nothing
to say for himself, they said, and he so handsome too.

"Handsome!" cried Elspie; "is it handsome,--the face all a spatter with
the color of the hair? He's nice eyes of his own, but his skin's
deesgustin'." Which speech, if Donald had overheard it, would have
caused that there should never have been this story to tell. But luckily
Donald did not. All that he bore away from the McCloud farm-house that
June morning was a picture of a face and flitting figure, and the sound
in his ears of a voice,--a picture and a sound which he was destined to
see and hear all his life.

He scarcely spoke on his way back to the boat, and Katie perplexed
herself vainly trying to account for his silence. It must be, she
thought, that he had been vexed by the sight of so many girls and the
sound of their idle chatter. He would have liked it better if nobody but
the family had been at home. What a shame for a man to live alone as he
did, and get into such unsocial ways! He grew more and more averse to
society each year. Now, if he were only married, and had a bright home,
where people came and went, with a bit of a tea now and then, how good
it would be for him,--take the stiffness out of his ways, and make him
more as he used to be fifteen, or even ten years ago! And so the good
Katie went on in her placid mind, trotting along silently by his side,
waiting for him to speak.

"Where did she get the heather?"

"What!" exclaimed Katie. The irrelevant question sounded like the speech
of one talking in his sleep. "Oh," she continued, "ye mean Elspie!"

"Ay," said Donald. "She'd a bit of heather in her b