class="i0">To tend his sheep: ’twas doleful well.
Diddle-diddle!”

“You know, Ingram, it must be precious hard for man who has to knock about in society, and take his wife with him, to have to explain to everybody that she is in reality a most unusual and gifted young person, and that she must not be expected to talk. It is all very well for him in his own house—that is to say, if he can preserve all the sentiment that made her shyness fine and wonderful before their marriage—but a man owes a little to society, even in choosing a wife.”

Another pause.

“Now you are the sort of a man, I should think, who would never get careless about your wife. You would always believe about her what you believed at first; and I dare say you would live very happily in your own house if she was a decent sort of woman. But you would have to go out into society sometimes; and the very fact that you had not got careless—as many men would, leaving their wives to produce any sort of impression they might—would make you vexed that the world could not, off-hand, value your wife as you fancy she ought to be valued. Don’t you see?”

This was the answer:

“As for your Princess Sheila, I firmly believe you have some romantic notion of marrying her and taking her up to London with you. If you seriously intend such a thing, I shall not argue with you. I shall praise her by the hour together, for I may have to depend on Mrs. Edward Ingram for my admission to your house. But if you only have the fancy as a fancy, consider what the result would be. You say she has never been to a school; that she has never had the companionship of a girl of her own age; that she has never read a newspaper; that she has never been out of this island; and that almost her sole society has been that of her mother, who educated her and tended her, and left her as ignorant of the real world as if she had lived all her life in a lighthouse. Goodness gracious! what a figure such a girl would cut in South Kensington!”

“My dear fellow,” said Ingram at last, “don’t be absurd. You will soon see what are the relations between Sheila Mackenzie and me, and you will be satisfied. I marry her? Do you think I would take the child to London to show her its extravagance and shallow society, and break her heart with thinking of the sea, and of the rude islanders she knew, and of their hard and bitter struggle for life? No. I should not like to see my wild Highland doe shut up in one of your southern parks, among your tame fallow-deer. She would look at them askance. She would separate herself from them, and by and by she would make one wild effort to escape and kill herself. That is not the fate in store for our good little Sheila; so you need not make yourself unhappy about her or me.

“Talking of Devonshire, how is that young American lady you met at Torquay in the Spring?”

“There, now, is the sort of woman a man would be safe in marrying!”

“And how?”

“Oh, well, you know,” said Frank Lavender, “I mean the sort of woman who would do you credit—hold her own in society, and that sort of thing. You must meet her some day. I tell you, Ingram, you will be delighted and charmed with her manners, and her grace, and the clever things she says; at least, everybody else is.”

“Ah, well!”

“You don’t seem to care much for brilliant women,” remarked the other, rather disappointed that his companion showed so little interest.

“Oh, yes, I like brilliant women very well. A clever woman is always a pleasanter companion than a clever man. But you were talking of the choice of a wife; and pertness in a girl, although it may be amusing at the time, may become something else by and by. Indeed, I shouldn’t advise a young man to marry an epigrammatist, for you see her shrewdness and smartness are generally the result of experiences in which he has had no share.”

“There may be something in that,” said Lavender; “but of course, you know, with a widow it is different; and Mrs. Lorraine never does go in for the ingenue.”

The pale blue cloud that had for some time been lying faintly along the horizon now came nearer and more near, until they could pick out something like the configuration of the island, its bays and promontories and mountains. The day seemed to become warmer as they got out of the driving wind of the Channel, and the heavy roll of the sea had so far subsided. Through comparatively calm water the great Clansman drove her away, until, on getting near the land and under shelter of the peninsula of Eye, the voyagers found themselves on a beautiful blue plain, with the spacious harbor of Stornoway opening out before them. There, on the one side, lay a white and cleanly town, with its shops, and quays and shipping. Above the bay in front stood a great gray castle, surrounded by pleasure-grounds and terraces and gardens; while on the southern side the harbor was overlooked by a semi-circle of hills, planted with every variety of tree. The white houses, the blue bay and the large gray building set amid green terraces and overlooked by wooded hills, formed a bright and lively little picture on this fresh and brilliant forenoon; and young Lavender, who had a quick eye for compositions which he was always about to undertake, but which never appeared on canvas, declared enthusiastically that he would spend a day or two in Stornoway on his return from Borva, and take home with him some sketch of the place.

“And is Miss Sheila on the quay, yonder?” he asked.

“Not likely,” said Ingram. “It is a long drive across the island, and I suppose she would remain at home to look after our dinner in the evening.”

“What? The wonderful Princess Sheila look after our dinner! Has she visions among the pots and pans, and does she look unutterable things when she is peeling potatoes?”

Ingram laughed: “There will a pretty alteration in your tune in a couple of days. You are sure to fall in love with her, and sigh desperately for a week or two. You always do when you meet a woman anywhere. But it won’t hurt you much, and she wont know anything about it.”

“I should rather like to fall in love with her to see how furiously jealous you would become. However, here we are.”

“And there is Mackenzie—the man with the big gray beard and the peaked cap—and he is talking to the chamberlain of the island.”

“What does he get up on his wagonette for, instead of coming on board to meet you?”

“Oh, that is one of his little tricks,” said Ingram, with a good-humored smile. “He means to receive us in state, and