ay--at the well," she answered, and then she laughed softly.

Again my spirits bounded.

"But I was not thinking of going there to-night," she added, and the
howlet in the bush beside me hooted at my ignominy.

I walked in a perspiration of vexation and alarm. It was plain that here
was no desire for my caress, that the girl was but probing the depth
of my presumption, and I gave up all thought of pushing my intention to
performance. Our conversation turned to more common channels, and I
had hoped my companion had lost the crude impression of my wooing as
we passed the path that led from the hunting-road to the
Bealloch-an-uarain.

"Oh!" she cried here, "I wished for some ivy; I thought to pluck it
farther back, and your nonsense made me quite forget."

"Cannot we return for it?" I said, well enough pleased at the chance of
prolonging our walk.

"No; it is too late," she answered abruptly. "Is there nowhere else here
where we could get it?"

"I do not think so," I said, stupidly. Then I remembered that it grew
in the richest profusion on the face of the grotto we call
Bealloch-an-uarain. "Except at the well," I added.

"Of course it is so; now I remember," said she; "there is plenty of
it there. Let us haste and get it" And she led the way up the path, I
following with a heart that surged and beat.

When our countryside is changed, when the forest of Creag Dubh, where
roam the deer, is levelled with the turf, and the foot of the passenger
wears round the castle of Argile, I hope, I pray, that grotto on the
brae will still lift up its face among the fern and ivy. Nowadays when
the mood comes on me, and I must be the old man chafing against the
decay of youth's spirit, and the recollection overpowers of other times
and other faces than those so kent and tolerant about me, I put my
plaid on my shoulders and walk to Bealloch-an-uarain well. My children's
children must be with me elsewhere on my saunters; here I must walk
alone. I am young again when looking on that magic fountain, still the
same as when its murmur sounded in my lover's ears. Here are yet the
stalwart trees, the tall companions, that nodded on our shy confessions;
the ivy hangs in sheeny spray upon the wall. Time, that ranges, has
here no freedom, but stands, shackled by links of love and memory to
the rocks we sat on. I sit now there and muse, and beside me is a shadow
that never ages, with a pale face averted, looking through leafless
boughs at