The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love Story

istress; but half an hour of loneliness down by the washing was overly much for her, and the strug

pneuk, who lived where the new houses of the Plainstones look over the level meadows of the Borough Muir. His father had often said within himself, as he walked the Edinburgh streets to visit some sick kirk member, as he ha

t juices had gone to feed the brain, yet all the time his heart had waited expectant of the revealing of a mystery. Winsome Charteris had come so suddenly into his life that the universe seemed newborn i

ous charms of a good girl. There is, indeed, no better solvent of a cold nature, no better antidote to a narrow education, no better b

they never taste the sweetness and strength of it as did Ralph Peden in these days, when, never having looked upon a maid with the level summer lightning of mutual interest

He stood light-headed, taking in as only they twain looked over the loch with far-away eyes, that

f hair and blooming, amplified, buxom form above the knoll, wringing at

her with a sudden sus

own so

walk into the loch among the lily beds. It was the "we" that overcame him. His father had used the pronoun in quite a different sense. "W

en Winsome Charteris said simply,

better g

fitting her for such exercises. Winsome came next, and Ralph stood aside to let her pass. She sprang up the low steps light as a feather, rested her fingertips for an appreciable fraction of a second on the hand which he instinctively held out, an

or him by the fair hands of Kerenhappuch herself. But this was wholly a new thing. His breath came suddenly short. He breathed rapidly as though to give his lungs more air. The atm

of wood-smoke blew into his eyes, and the rank steam of yellow home-made soap, manufactured with bracken ash for lye, rose to his nostrils. Now, Ralph Peden was well made and strong. Spare in body but

sh-trees, with their sky-tossing, dry- rustling leaves. There Ralph set his burden down. Meg Kissock had been watching him keenly. She saw that he had severely burned his hand, and also that he said nothing whatever about it. He was a man. This gained for the young man Meg's hearty approval almost as much as his bashfulness and native good looks. What Me

s could release her han

have not yet to

very well, but she o

ris, and this

over and over again, and he had not even the grace to say

e terrible store o' lear [learning] ye hae. He's the minister's man, ye ken, an' howks the graves ower by at the parish kirk-yard, f

istress, "do not

thruch stane ower his first wife; and when he buried his second in the neist grave, he just turned the broad flat

ashing, Meg,"

eat hurry yersel' doon aff the broomy kn

some of the lighter articles-pillow-slips, and fair sheets

carrying two cans over a wooden hoop; and in the frankest tutelage Winsome put her hand

-eyed young man might be a brother to her. It is a fallacy common among girls that young men desire them as sisters. Ralph himself was under no such illusion, or at least would not have bee

clear oval of her cheek. He had time to note-of course entirely as a philosopher-the pale purple shadow

d stopped aghast at his utteran

nsome, glancing up with a fra

to do all this work," he said, with an

shook

ng a friend to her. The meaning was that their hearts had been talking while their tongues had spoken of other things; and though there was no thought of love in the breast of Winsome Charteris, already in the intercourse of a single morning she had given this young Edinburgh student of divinity a place which no

dering. You have asked me, and you shall know: I only wonde

s was not in the

demurely. "What would Mr. Welsh say? I am sure he has never troubled

d this persistent young m

er eye, "I suppose because I am a very lazy sort of

d?" asked unblushingly the author of

u went up and saw m

ith great

the point o' remark

ss