when, never having looked upon a maid with the level summer
lightning of mutual interest flashing in his eyes, he plunged into
love's fathomless mysteries as one may dive upon a still day from
some craggy platform among the westernmost isles into Atlantic
depths.

Winsome's light summer dress touched his hand and thrilled the lad
to his remotest nerve centres. He stood light-headed, taking in as
only they twain looked over the loch with far-away eyes, that
subtle fragrance, delicate and free, which like a garment clothed
the maid of the Grannoch lochside.

"The water's on the boil," cried Meg Kissock, setting her ruddy
shock of hair and blooming, amplified, buxom form above the knoll,
wringing at the same time the suds from her hands, "an' I canna
lift it aff mysel'."

Her mistress looked at her with a sudden suspicion. Since when had
Meg grown so feeble?

"We had better go down," she said simply, turning to Ralph, who
would have cheerfully assented had she suggested that they
should together walk into the loch among the lily beds. It was the
"we" that overcame him. His father had used the pronoun in quite a
different sense. "WE will take the twenty-ninth chapter of second
Chronicles this morning, Ralph--what do WE understand by this
peculiar use of VAV CONVERSIVE?"

But it was quite another thing when Winsome Charteris said simply,
as though he had been her brother: