you will let us go with you," said Lavender, rather
anxiously; and she assented with a gracious smile, and went to fetch the
great deerhound that was her constant companion. And lo! he found himself
walking with a Princess in this wonderland, through the magic twilight
that prevails in northern latitudes. Mackenzie and Ingram had gone to the
front. The large deerhound, after regarding him attentively, had gone to
its mistress's side, and remained closely there.

6. Even Sheila, when they had reached the loftiest part of their route,
and could see beneath them the island and the water surrounding it, was
struck by the exceeding beauty of the twilight; and as for her companion,
he remembered it many a time thereafter, as if it were a dream of the sea.

7. Before them lay the Atlantic--a pale line of blue, still, silent, and
remote. Overhead the sky was of a clear, thin gold, with heavy masses of
violet cloud stretched across from north to south, and thickening as they
got near the horizon. Down at their feet, near the shore, a dusky line of
huts and houses was scarcely visible; and over these lay a pale blue film
of peat smoke that did not move in the still air.

8. Then they saw the bay into which the White Water runs, and they could
trace the yellow glimmer of the river stretching into the island through a
level valley of bog and morass. Far away towards the east lay the bulk of
the island,--dark green undulations of moorland and pasture; and there, in
the darkness, the gable of one white house had caught the clear light of
the sky, and was gleaming westward like a star.

9. But all this was as nothing to the glory that began to shine in the
southeast, where the sky was of a pale violet over the peaks of
Mealasabhal and Suainabhal. There, into the beautiful dome, rose the
golden crescent of the moon, warm in color, as though it still retained
the last rays of the sunset. A line of quivering gold fell across Loch
Roag, and touched the black hull and spars of the boat in which Sheila had
been sailing in the morning.

10. That bay down there, with its white sands and massive rocks, its still
expanse of water, and its background of mountain peaks palely covered by
the yellow moonlight, seemed really a home for a magic princess who was
shut off from all the world. But here, in front of them, was another sort
of sea, and another sort of life,--a small fishing village hidden under a
cloud of pale peat smoke, and fronting