She had tried on him her little arts of subjugation, but the moment
she began to love him, she not only saw their uselessness, but hated
them. Her repellent behaviour to her admirers, and her occasional
excitement and oddity, caused her mother some anxiety, but as the
season came to a close, she grew gayer, and was at times absolutely
bewitching. The mother wished to go northward by degrees, paying
visits on the way; but her plan met with no approbation from the
girls. Christina longed for the presence and voice of Ian in the
cottage-parlour, Mercy for a hill-side with the chief; both longed
to hear them speak to each other in their own great way. And they
talked so of the delights of their highland home, that the mother
began to feel the mountains, the sea, and the islands, drawing her
to a land of peace, where things went well, and the world knew how
to live. But the stormiest months of her life were about to pass
among those dumb mountains!

After a long and eager journey, the girls were once more in their
rooms at the New House.

Mercy went to her window, and stood gazing from it upon the
mountain-world, faint-lighted by the northern twilight. She might
have said with Portia:--

"This night methinks is but the daylight sick;
It looks a little paler: 'tis a day,
Such as the day is when the sun is hid."

She could see the dark bulk of the hills, sharpened to a clear edge
against the pellucid horizon, but with no colour, and no visible