so imploringly? He renewed his complaints against
the melancholy of the sea and the dreariness of the northern winters.
He described again and again the brilliant lights and colors of
town-life in the South. As a mere matter of experience and education
she ought to go to London; and had not her papa as good as intimated
his intention of taking her?

In the midst of these representations a step was heard in the hall,
and then the girl looked round with a bright light on her face.

"Well, Sheila?" said Ingram, according to his custom, and both the
girl's hands were in his the next minute. "You are down early. What
have you been about? Have you been telling Mr. Lavender of the Black
Horse of Loch Suainabhal?"

"No: Mr. Lavender has been telling me of London."

"And I have been trying to induce Miss Mackenzie to pay us a visit,
so that we may show her the difference between a city and an island.
But all to no purpose. Miss Mackenzie seems to like hard winters and
darkness and cold; and as for that perpetual and melancholy and cruel
sea, that in the winter-time I should fancy might drive anybody into a
lunatic asylum--"

"Ah, you must not talk badly of the sea," said the girl, with all
her courage and brightness returned to her face: "it is our very good
friend. It gives us food, and keeps many people alive. It carries the
lads away to other places, and brings them back with money in their
pockets--"

"And sometimes it smashes a few of them on the rocks, or swallows up
a dozen families, and the next morning it is as smooth and treacherous
and fair as if nothing had happened."

"But that is not the sea at all," said Sheila: "that is the storms
that will wreck the boats; and how can the sea help that? When the sea
is let alone the sea is very good to us."

Ingram laughed aloud and patted the girl's head fondly; and Lavender,
blushing a little, confessed he was beaten, and that he would never
again, in Miss Mackenzie's presence, say anything against the sea.

The King of Borva now appearing, they all went in to breakfast; and
Sheila sat opposite the window, so that all the light coming in from
the clear sky and the sea was reflected upon her face, and lit up
every varying expression that crossed it or that shone up in the
beautiful deeps of her eyes. Lavender, his own face in shadow, could
look at her from time to time, himself unseen; and as he sat in almost
absolute silence, and noticed how she talked with Ingram,