"Are you going?" said Christina with genuine surprise, for she had
not understood his intention.

"The way is easy now," he answered. "I am sorry to leave you, but I
have to join Ian, and the twilight will be flickering down before I
reach the place."

"And there will be no moon!" said Mercy: "how will you get home
through the darkness?"

"We do not mean to come home to-night."

"Oh, then, you are going to friends!"

"No; we shall be with each other--not a soul besides."

"There can't surely be a hotel up there?"

Alister laughed as he answered,

"There are more ways than one of spending a night on the hills. If
you look from a window--in that direction," he said, pointing, "the
last thing before you go to bed, you will see that at least we shall
not perish with cold."

He sprang again over the burn, and with a wave of his bonnet, went,
like Ian, straight up the hill.

The girls stood for some time watching him climb as if he had been