ndir of Loch Awe; called
Lord Alan Brandir, son of a worthy peer of Scotland. Now will you
confide in me?"

'"I confide in you!" I cried, looking at him with amazement; "why, you
are not older than I am!"

'"Yes I am, three years at least. You, my ward, are not sixteen. I, your
worshipful guardian, am almost nineteen years of age."

'Upon hearing this I looked at him, for that seemed then a venerable
age; but the more I looked the more I doubted, although he was dressed
quite like a man. He led me in a courtly manner, stepping at his tallest
to an open place beside the water; where the light came as in channel,
and was made the most of by glancing waves and fair white stones.

'"Now am I to your liking, cousin?" he asked, when I had gazed at him,
until I was almost ashamed, except at such a stripling. "Does my Cousin
Lorna judge kindly of her guardian, and her nearest kinsman? In a word,
is our admiration mutual?"

'"Truly I know not," I said; "but you seem good-natured, and to have no
harm in you. Do they trust you with a sword?"

'For in my usage among men of stature and strong presence, this pretty
youth, so tricked and slender, seemed nothing but a doll to me. Although
he scared me in the wood, now that I saw him in good twilight, lo! he
was but little greater than my little self; and so tasselled and so
ruffled with a mint of bravery, and a green coat barred with red, and
a slim sword hanging under him, it was the utmost I could do to look at
him half-gravely.

'"I fear that my presence hath scarce enough of ferocity about it,"
(he gave a jerk to his sword as he spoke, and clanked it on the
brook-stones); "yet do I assure you, cousin, that I am not without
some prowess; and many a master of defence hath this good sword of mine
disarmed. Now if the boldest and biggest robber in all this charming
valley durst so much as breathe the scent of that flower coronal, which
doth not adorn but is adorned"--here he talked some nonsense--"I would
cleave him from head to foot, ere ever he could fly or cry."

'"Hush!" I said; "talk not so loudly, or thou mayst have to do both
thyself, and do them both in vain."

'For he was quite forgetting now, in his bravery before me, where he
stood, and with whom he spoke, and how the summer lightning shone above
the hills and down the hollow. And as I gazed on this slight fair youth,
clearly one of high birth and breeding (albeit over-boastful), a chill
of fear crept over me; bec