midships, with the sheets of the mainsail held
fast, and superintended the seamanship of his young mistress with a
respectful but most evident pride. And as Ingram had gone off with
Mackenzie to walk over to the White Water before going down to
Borvabost, Frank Lavender was Sheila's sole companion out in this
wonderland of rock and sea and blue sky.

He did not talk much to her, and she was so well occupied with the
boat that he could regard with impunity the shifting lights and graces
of her face and all the wonder and winning depths of her eyes. The sea
was blue around them; the sky overhead had not a speck of cloud in it;
the white sand-bays, the green stretches of pasture and the far and
spectral mountains trembled in a haze of sunlight. Then there was all
the delight of the fresh and cool wind, the hissing of the water along
the boat, and the joyous rapidity with which the small vessel, lying
over a little, ran through the crisply curling waters, and brought
into view the newer wonders of the opening sea.

Was it not all a dream, that he should be sitting by the side of this
sea-princess, who was attended only by her deerhound and the tall
keeper? And if a dream, why should it not go on for ever? To live for
ever in this magic land--to have the princess herself carry him in
this little boat into the quiet bays of the islands, or out at night,
in moonlight, on the open sea--to forget for ever the godless South
and its social phantasmagoria, and live in this beautiful and distant
solitude, with the solemn secrets of the hills and the moving deep for
ever present to the imagination, might not that be a nobler life? And
some day or other he would take this island-princess up to London,
and he would bid the women that he knew--the scheming mothers and the
doll-like daughters--stand aside from before this perfect work of God.
She would carry with her the mystery of the sea in the deeps of her
eyes, and the music of the far hills would be heard in her voice, and
all the sweetness and purity and brightness of the clear summer skies
would be mirrored in her innocent soul. She would appear in London as
some wild-plumaged bird hailing from distant climes, and before she
had lived there long enough to grow sad, and have the weight of the
city clouding the brightness of her eyes, she would be spirited
away again into this strange sea-kingdom, where there seemed to be
perpetual sunshine and the light music of the waves.

Poor