note-book again. There was little more to read. It was at this
point that the humble-bee had startled the writer.

But underneath there were woids faintly scrawled in pencil: "Must
concentrate attention"--"The proper study of mankind is"--this
last written twice, as if the writer were practising copy-lines
absently. Then at the very bottom was written, so faintly that
hardly any eyes but Winsome's could have read the words:

"Of all colours I do love the lilac. I wonder all maids do not
wear gear of that hue!"

"Oh!" said Winsome Charteris quickly.

Then she gathered up the books very gently, and taking a kerchief
from her neck, she folded the two great books within it, fastening
them with a cunning knot. She was carrying them slowly up towards
the farm town of Craig Ronald in her bare arms when Ralph Peden
sat answering his catechism in the study at the manse. She entered
the dreaming courtyard, and walked sedately across its silent sun-
flooded spaces without a sound. She passed the door of the cool
parlour where her grandfather and grandmother sat, the latter with
her hands folded and her great tortoiseshell spectacles on her
nose, taking her afternoon nap. A volume of Waverley lay beside
her. Into her own white little room Winsome went, and laid the
bundle of books in the bottom of the wall-press, which was lined
with sheets of the Cairn Edward Miscellany. She looked at it some
time before she shut the door.

"His name is Ralph," she said. "I wonder how old he is--I shall