The Half-Hearted

ht to the very edge of the waste country. A high fragrance of heath and bog-myrtle was in the wind, and the mouth grew cool as after long draughts of spring water. Mists were crowding in the valley

g of the full-uddered cows in the distant meadows. Abashed and enchanted, the girl listened. It was an elfin land where the old witch voices of hill and river were not si

drives. But this was after lunch; before, her guests might do as they pleased. Lord Manorwater went off to see some tenant; Arthur, after vain efforts to decoy Alice into a fishing expedition, went down the stream in a canoe, because to his fool's head it seemed the riskiest means of passing the time at his disposal; Bertha and her sister were writing letters; the spectacled people had settled themselves below shady trees with vol

er to good humour had it not been for a thought which could not be exorcised. She knew of Lady Manorwater's reputation as an inveterate matchmaker, and in some subtle way the suspicion came to her that that goddess had marked herself as a quarry. She found herself next Mr. Stocks at meals, she had already listened to his eulogy from her hostess's own lips, and to her unquiet fancy it seemed as if the others stood back that

re refreshing; fifteen miles in an afternoon an exaltation. She reached the moor beyond the policies, and, once past this rushy wilderness, came to the Avelin-side and a single plank bridge which she crossed lightly without a tr

e thick screen of the birches caught in her hair. When she reached a vantage-rock and looked down on the chain of pools and rapids by which she had come, a cry of delight broke from her lips. This was living, this was the zest of life! The upland wind cooled her brow; she washed her h

deep brown pools where the trout darted. On either side rose the gates of the valley-two craggy knolls each with a few trees on its face. Beyond was a green lawnlike place with a great confusion of blu

high above a trough of rock, now down in a green winding hollow. Suddenly she came on the spiri

n aff again," groaned the smaller. "Oh, be canny, man! If we grip him it'll be the biggest trout that the laird will have in his basket." Th

themselves on their elbows and stared. "Heather!" they ejaculated in one breath. Then they, too, grinned broadly, for it was impossible to resist so good-humoured an intruder. She held her head high and walked

op a little flushed and panting, she became conscious that the upland valley was not without inhabitants. For, not six

ence, and as he worked he whistled Schubert's "Wohin," and whistled it very badly. Then he fell to apostrophizing his ta

n was lying at Alice

u can," and Alice tugged heroically at the waterproof silk. She felt horribly nervous, and was conscious that she must look a very flushed and untidy young barbarian. Many times she wanted to drop it and run away, bu

regard his associates. "Now, you young wretches-" and the words froze on his lips, for in the place of

hildhood. The girl was no better. She had blushed deeply, and was now minutely scanning the stones in the burn. Then she ra

u were abusing somebody so terribly that to stop such language I had to stop and help

eld it far better than Tam or Jock would

es. The small white hat crowned a great tangle of wonderful reddish gold hair. She held herself with the grace which is born of natural health and no modish training; the strong hazel

uit with a ruinous Norfolk jacket, patched at the elbows and with leather at wrist and shoulder. Apparently he scorned the June sun, for he had no cap. His pockets seemed bursting with tackle, and a discarded basket lay on the ground. The w

Etterick. He was not the Doctor, and he was not the minister. Might not he be that Lewie, the well-beloved, whose praises she ha

ye lost," he cried. "We guddled 'um. We wad has gotten 'um afore, but a wumman frichte

ther the operation known as "scragging." It was a su

wide up the hill till I cry ye back." The tones implied that his

strife. "You are fishing up, so I had better go down the burn

rsed that young gentleman like a dog, bidding him "come near," or "gang wide," or "lie do

burn," said the man reflectively. "You s

fraid," said th

own, and the trout are very shy

ll me where Glenavelin is, for the

e over to-morrow. That fence on the hillside is their march, and if you follow it you will

ette, but she could not repress a tinge of irritation at so callous and self-absorbed a young man. Another would have been profuse in thanks and would have accompanied her to point out the road, or in some way or other would have declared his appreciation of h

e servente were things she did not love. Carelessness suited well with a frayed jacket and the companionship of a hill burn and two ragged boys. So, comf