d Kate. "You are not going to leave me alone beside
this--talking water?"

"I thought you liked the water," said Alec.

"Yes. But I don't want to be left alone beside it. I will go with you,
and get some work."

She turned away from the stream with a strange backward look, and they
walked home.

But as Kate showed some disinclination to return to the river-side,
Alec put a seat for her near the house, in the shadow of a silver
birch, and threw himself on the grass at her feet. There he began to
read the _Antiquary_, only half understanding it, in the enchantment of
knowing that he was lying at her feet, and had only to look up to see
her eyes. At noon, Mrs Forbes sent them a dish of curds, and a great
jug of cream, with oatcakes, and butter soft from the churn; and the
rippling shadow of the birch played over the white curds and the golden
butter as they ate.

Am I not now fairly afloat upon the gentle stream of an idyl? Shall I
watch the banks as they glide past, and record each fairy-headed flower
that looks at its image in the wave? Or shall I mow them down and sweep
them together in a sentence?

I will gather a few of the flowers, and leave the rest. But first I
will make a remark or two upon the young people.

Those amongst my readers who have had the happiness to lead innocent
boy-lives, will know what a marvellous delight it was to Alec to have
this girl near him in his own home and his own haunts. He never
speculated on her character or nature, any more than Hamlet did about
those of Ophelia before he was compelled to doubt womankind. His own
principles were existent only in a latent condition, undeveloped from
good impulses and kind sentiments. For instance: he would help any one
whose necessity happened to make an impression upon him, but he never
took pains to enter into the feelings of others--to understand them
from their own point of view: he never had said to himself, "That is
another me."

Correspondent to this condition were some of Kate's theories of life
and its duties.

The question came up, whether a certain lady in fiction had done right
in running away with her lover. Mrs Forbes made a rather decided remark
on the subject. Kate said nothing, but her face glowed.

"Tell us what you think about it, Katie," said Mrs Forbes.

Katie was silent for a moment. Then with the air of a martyr, from whom
the rack can only extort a fuller confession of his faith--though I
fear she had no deeper