lace had offered themselves as
lovers and been refused.

'Oh! what's the use o' talking, father,' cried Mrs. Reid; 'if the girl
won't, she won't, and that's all.--But I can tell _you_, Eelan Reid,
that all your looks and your manners won't save you from being an old
maid, if you turn your back on the men.'

'I wasn't talking,' said Mr. Reid humbly; 'I was only saying to the
lassie that I didn't want her to hurry; but I'd be right sorry when I'm
getting old not to have some notion where I was going to leave my
money--it'll more than last out Eelan's day, if it's rightly taken care
of.'

'But I can't marry unless I should fall in love,' said Eelan wistfully.
Her parents had a vague notion that this manner of expressing herself
was in some way a proof of her high accomplishments.

Life was by no means dull in the little town. There were picnics in
summer, sleigh-drives in winter, dances, and what not; and Eelan was no
recluse. Still, she loved the place better than the people, and there
was not a spot of ground in the neighbourhood that she did not know by
heart.

In summer, the sparkling water of the lake rippled under a burning sun,
and the thousand tree-trunks left floating in it, held near to the edge
by the floating boom of logs, became hot and dry on the upper side,
while the green water-moss caught them from beneath. It was great fun
for the school children to scamper out daringly on these floating fields
of lumber; and Eelan liked to go with them, and sometimes walk far out
alone along the edge of the boom. She would listen to the birds singing,
the children shouting, to the whir of the saws in the mill, and the
plash of the river falling over the dam; and she would feel that it was
enough delight simply to live without distressing herself about marriage
yet awhile.

When winter came, Eelan was happier still. All the roughness and
darkness of the earth was lost in a downy ocean of snow. Where the
waterfall had been there was a fairy palace of icicles glancing in the
sun, and smooth white roads were made across the frozen lake. Eelan
never drew back dazzled from the glittering landscape; she was a child
of the winter, and she loved its light. She would often harness her
father's horse to the old family sleigh and drive alone across the lake.
She took her snow-shoes with her, and, leaving the horse at some
friendly farmhouse, she would tramp into the woods over the trackless
snow. The girl would stand still a