talking, hut both did their best to be agreeable.

Ian saw quite as well as his mother what ordinary girls they were,
but, accustomed to the newer modes in manner and speech, he was not
shocked by movements and phrases that annoyed her. The mother
apprehended fascination, and was uneasy, though far from showing it.

When they rose, Ian attended them to the door, leaving his mother
anxious, for she feared he would accompany them home. Till he
returned, she did not resume her seat.

The girls took their way along the ridge in silence, till the ruin
was between them and the cottage, when they burst into laughter.
They were ladies enough not to laugh till out of sight, but not
ladies enough to see there was nothing to laugh at.

"A harp, too!" said Christina. "Mercy, I believe we are on the top
of mount Ararat, and have this very moment left the real Noah's ark,
patched into a cottage! Who CAN they be?"

"Gentlefolk evidently," said Mercy, "--perhaps old-fashioned people
from Inverness."

"The young man must have been to college!--In the north, you know,"
continued Christina, thinking with pride that her brother was at
Oxford, "nothing is easier than to get an education, such as it is!
It costs in fact next to nothing. Ploughmen send their sons to St.
Andrew's and Aberdeen to make gentlemen of them! Fancy!"

"You must allow this case a successful one!"