ver the water?"

If Elsley had not had the evil spirit haunting about him, he would have
joined in Lucia's admiration of the beautiful creature, as it dropped
into the foam from its narrow ledge, with its fan of palmate leaves
bright green against the black mosses of the rock, and its golden petals
glowing like a tiny sun in the darkness of the chasm: as it was, he
answered--

"Only a buttercup."

"I am sure it's not a buttercup! It is three times as large, and a so
much paler yellow! Is it a buttercup, now, Major Campbell?"

Campbell looked down.

"Very nearly one, after all: but its real name is the globe flower. It
is common enough here in spring; you may see the leaves in every
pasture. But I suppose this plant, hidden from the light, has kept its
flowers till the autumn."

"And till I came to see it, darling that it is! I should like to reward
it by wearing it home."

"I daresay it would be very proud of the honour; especially if Mr.
Vavasour would embalm it in verse, after it had done service to you."

"It is doing good enough service where it is," said Elsley. "Why pluck
out the very eye of that perfect picture?"

"Strange," said Lucia, "that such, a beautiful thing should be born
there all alone upon these rocks, with no one to look at it."

"It enjoys itself sufficiently without us, no doubt," said Elsley.

"Yes; but I want to enjoy it. Oh, if you could but get it for me?"

Elsley looked down. There were fifteen feet of somewhat slippery rock;
then a ragged ledge a foot broad, in a crack of which the flower grew;
then the dark boiling pool. Elsley shrugged his shoulders, and said,
smiling, as if it were a fine thing to say--"Really, my dear, all men
are not knight errants enough to endanger their necks for a bit of weed;
and I cannot say that such rough _tours de force_ are at all to my
fancy."

Lucia turned away: but she was vexed. Campbell could see that a strange
fancy for the plant had seized her. As she walked from the spot, he
could hear her talking about its beauty to Valencia.

Campbell's blood boiled. To be asked by that woman--by any woman--to get
her that flower: and to be afraid! It was bad enough to be ill-tempered;
but to be a coward, and to be proud thereof! He yielded to a temptation,
which he had much better have left alone, seeing that Lucia had not
asked him; swung himself easily enough down the ledge; got the flower,
and put it, quietly bowing, into Mrs. Vavasour's hand.