Sheila. Along the ruffled blue waters of the sounds and lochs that wind
among the roots of unpronounceable mountains, and past the dark hills
of Skye, and through the unnumbered flocks of craggy islets where the
sea-birds nest, the spell of the sweet Highland maid drew us, and we
were pilgrims to the Ultima Thule where she lived and reigned.

The Lewis, with its tail-piece, the Harris, is quite a sizable island to
be appended to such a country as Scotland. It is a number of miles
long, and another number of miles wide, and it has a number of thousand
inhabitants--I should say as many as three-quarters of an inhabitant to
the square mile--and the conditions of agriculture and the fisheries are
extremely interesting and quarrelsome. All these I duly studied at
the time, and reported in a series of intolerably dull letters to the
newspaper which supplied a financial basis for my sentimental journey.
They are full of information; but I have been amused to note, after
these many years, how wide they steer of the true motive and interest of
the excursion. There is not even a hint of Sheila in any of them.
Youth, after all, is a shamefaced and secretive season; like the fringed
polygala, it hides its real blossom underground.

It was Sheila's dark-blue dress and sailor hat with the white feather
that we looked for as we loafed through the streets of Stornoway, that
quaint metropolis of the herring-trade, where strings of fish alternated
with boxes of flowers in the windows, and handfuls of fish were spread
upon the roofs to dry just as the sliced apples are exposed upon the
kitchen-sheds of New England in September, and dark-haired women
were carrying great creels of fish on their shoulders, and groups of
sunburned men were smoking among the fishing-boats on the beach and
talking about fish, and sea-gulls were floating over the houses with
their heads turning from side to side and their bright eyes peering