hanging, but always beautiful. There is only
one other aspect I should like to see--the snow time."

"We have not much snow here," said he. "It seldom lies in the winter."

This was a strange conversation for two engaged lovers it was not much
more interesting than their talk--how many ages ago?--at Charing Cross
station. But then, when she had said to him, "_Ought we to take
tickets?_" she had looked into his face with those appealing, innocent,
beautiful eyes. Now her eyes never met his. She was afraid.

She managed to lead up to her announcement skilfully enough. By the time
they reached the shore an extraordinarily beautiful sunset was shining
over the sea and the land, something so bewildering and wonderful that
they all four stopped to look at it. The Atlantic was a broad expanse
of the palest and most brilliant green, with the pathway of the sun a
flashing line of gold coming right across until it met the rocks, and
there was a jet black against the glow. Then the distant islands of
Colonsay, and Staffa, and Lunga, and Fladda lying on this shining green
sea, appeared to be of a perfectly transparent bronze; while nearer at
hand the long ranges of cliffs were becoming a pale rose-red under the
darkening blue-gray sky. It was a blaze of color such as she had never
even dreamed of as being possible in nature; nothing she had as yet seen
in these northern latitudes had at all approached it. And as she stood
there, and looked at those transparent islands of bronze on the green
sea, she said to him,--

"Do you know, Keith, this is not at all like the place I had imagined as
the scene of the gloomy stories you used to tell me about the revenges
of the clans. I have been frightened once or twice since I came here, no
doubt, by the wild sea, and the darkness of the cathedral, and so forth;
but the longer I stay the less I see to suggest those awful stories. How
could you associate such an evening as this with a frightful tragedy? Do
you think those people ever existed who were supposed to have
suffocated, or slaughtered, or starved to death any one who opposed
their wishes?"

"And I do not suppose they troubled themselves much about fine sunsets,"
said he. "That was not what they had to think about in those days."

"Perhaps not," said she, lightly; "but, you know, I had expected to find
a place from which I could gain some inspiration for tragedy--for I
should like to try, once for all--if I _should_ have to give up