shoulders. "Sickness may come in all
places," said she. "If I were a man I do not think I would live alone on
Gaster Fell."

"I have braved worse dangers than that," said I, laughing; "but I fear
that your picture will be spoiled, for the clouds are banking up, and
already I feel a few raindrops."

Indeed, it was high time we were on our way to shelter, for even as I
spoke there came the sudden, steady swish of the shower. Laughing
merrily, my companion threw her light shawl over her head, and, seizing
picture and easel, ran with the lithe grace of a young fawn down the
furze-clad slope, while I followed after with camp-stool and paint-box.

* * * * *

It was the eve of my departure from Kirkby-Malhouse that we sat upon the
green bank in the garden, she with dark dreamy eyes looking sadly out
over the sombre fells; while I, with a book upon my knee, glanced
covertly at her lovely profile and marvelled to myself how twenty years
of life could have stamped so sad and wistful an expression upon it.

"You have read much," I remarked at last. "Women have opportunities now
such as their mothers never knew. Have you ever thought of going
further--or seeking a course of college or even a learned profession?"

She smiled wearily at the thought.

"I have no aim, no ambition," she said. "My future is black--confused--a
chaos. My life is like to one of these paths upon the fells. You have
seen them, Monsieur Upperton. They are smooth and straight and clear
where they begin; but soon they wind to left and wind to right, and so
mid rocks and crags until they lose themselves in some quagmire. At
Brussels my path was straight; but now, _mon Dieu_! who is there can tell
me where it leads?"

"It might take no prophet to do that, Miss Cameron," quoth I, with the
fatherly manner which twoscore years may show toward one. "If I may read
your life, I would venture to say that you were destined to fulfil the
lot of women--to make some good man happy, and to shed around, in some
wider circle, the pleasure which your society has given me since first I
knew you."

"I will never marry," said she, with a sharp decision, which surprised
and somewhat amused me.

"Not marry--and why?"

A strange look passed over her sensitive features, and she plucked
nervously at the grass on the bank beside her.

"I dare not," said she in a voice that quivered with emotion.

"Dare not?"

"It is not for me. I have other things to do. Th