part give up your pride of birth, and, it may be, something of your
place in society. It is a surrender on both sides. Let our motto be,
'All for love, and the world well lost.'" Yes, a very pretty bargain;
but as he considered that he was now wandering into the region of
romance--a region which he unhesitatingly scorned as having no relation
with the facts of the world--he withdrew from that futile and useless
and idle speculation, and took to thinking of Miss Honnor Cunyngham as
she actually was, and wondering over which of the Aivron pools the
proud-featured fisher-maiden would be casting at this moment.

And here, again, as the hours crept by, was something of a more
practical nature to remind him of the now far-distant strath. In order
to save him from the hurry of a twenty-minutes' railway-station dinner,
Lady Adela had ordered a luncheon-basket to be packed for him, and her
skill and forethought in this direction were unequalled, as many a
little shooting-party had joyfully discovered. When Lionel leisurely
began to explore the contents of the basket, he was proud to think that
it was under her own immediate supervision that these things had been
put together for him. There was some kind of sentimental interest
attaching to the chicken and tongue and galantine, to the salad and
biscuits and cake and what not; and he knew that it was no servant who
had thought of filling a small tin canister with peaches and grapes,
even as he knew that only Lady Adela was aware of his preference for the
particular dry Sillery of which a half-bottle here lay in its covering
of straw. As he took out the things and placed them on the seat beside
him, he could have imagined that a pair of very gentle hands had
arranged that repast for him. Then from this much too sumptuous banquet
his mind wandered away back to the simple fare that old Robert used to
bring forth from the fishing-bag, when Miss Honnor had taken her place
among the bracken. Again he was with her in that little dell away among
the solitudes of the hills, with the murmur of the Geinig coming up to
them from the chasm below. The sunlight flashed on the rippling burn at
their feet; the leaves of the birches trembled, and no more than
trembled, in the still air; the deep, clear blue of the sky overhead
told them to be in no hurry--they would have to wait till the afternoon
for clouds. In the perfect silence (for the humming of the bees in the
heather was hardly a sound at al