"As good as she is bonny." It rang in Donald's ears like a refrain of
heavenly music as he strode away. "As good as she is bonny;" and how
good must that be? She could not be as good as she was bonny, for she
was the bonniest lass that ever drew breath. Gray eyes and golden hair
and pink cheeks and pink heather all mingled in Donald's dreams that
night in fantastic and impossible combinations; and more than once he
waked in terror, with the sweat standing on his forehead from some
nightmare fancy of danger to the "Heather Bell" and to Elspie, both
being inextricably entangled together in his vision.

The visions did not fade with the day. They pursued Donald, and haunted
his down-sitting and his uprising. He tried to shake them off, drive
them away; for when he came to think the thing over soberly, he called
himself an old fool to be thus going daft about a child like Elspie.

"Barely twenty at the most, and me forty. She'd not look at an old
fellow like me, and maybe't would be like a sin if she did," said Donald
to himself over and over again. But it did no good. "As good as she is
bonny, bonny, bonny," rang in his ears, and the blue eyes and golden
hair and merry smile floated before his eyes. There was no help for it.
Since the world began there have been but two roads out of this sort of
mystic maze in which Donald now found himself lost,--but two roads, one
bright with joy, one dark with sorrow. And which road should it be
Donald's fate to travel must be for the child Elspie to say. After a few
days of bootless striving with himself, during which time he had spent
more hours with Katie than he had for a year before,--it was such a
comfort to him to see in her face the subtle likeness to Elspie, and to
hear her talk about plans of bringing her to Charlottetown for a visit
if nothing more,--after a few days of this, Captain Donald, one Saturday
afternoon, sailing past Orwell Head, suddenly ran into the inlet where