_y_; "and indeed I don't think you can possibly tell how singularly
pleasant and quaint it is to an English ear to hear just that little
softening of the vowels that the people have here. I suppose you don't
notice that they say _gyarden_ for garden--"

"They!" As if he had paid attention to the pronunciation of any one
except Sheila herself!

"--but not quite so hard as I pronounce it. And so with a great many
other words, that are softened and sweetened, and made almost poetical
in their sound by the least bit of inflection. How surprised and
pleased English ladies would be to hear you speak! Oh, I beg your
pardon--I did not mean to--I--I beg your pardon--"

Sheila seemed a little astonished by her companion's evident
mortification, and said with a smile, "If others speak so in the
island, of course I must too; and you say it does not shock you."

His distress at his own rudeness now found an easy vent. He protested
that no people could talk English like the people of Lewis. He gave
Sheila to understand that the speech of English folks was as the
croaking of ravens compared with the sweet tones of the northern
isles; and this drew him on to speak of his friends in the South and
of London, and of the chances of Sheila ever going thither.

"It must be so strange never to have seen London," he said. "Don't you
ever dream of what it is like? Don't you ever try to think of a great
space, nearly as big as this island, all covered over with large
houses, the roads between the houses all made of stone, and great
bridges going over the rivers, with railway-trains standing? By the