The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love Story

w it indignantly on the floor. She was about to say something to Meg, but that erratic and priv

had been allowing her far too great liberties. It did not occur to Winsome Charteris that Meg had been accustomed to tease her in something like this manner about every man under forty who had come to Craig Ronald on any pretext whatever-from young Johnnie Dusticoat, the son of the wholesale meal-miller from Dumfries, to Ag

altogether too aggravating that Meg

d looked towards the pale gray-blue of the window-panes, in which there was already the pro

re I really cared for dear old grannie! Meg might know better, and it is very silly of her to say things like that. I shall send bac

s that sleep and thought are two gifts of God which do not come or go at man's bidding. In her silent chamber there seemed to be a kind of hushed yet palpable life. It seemed to Winsome as if there were about her a thousand litt

l send it back to him to-morrow without reading it

windowseat, and drawing a great knitted shawl about her, she sat, a slender figure enveloped from head to foot in sheeny white. The shawl imprisoned the pillow t

sat waiting till the dawn should come. It might be something of great importance. It might only be

niverse. It thrills us somehow with a far-off prophecy of that eternal dawning when the Go

n ridge of the Orchar Hill, where the sun went down, was neither brighter nor yet darker than the faint tinge of lucent green, lik

owl as he betook himself to bed. The first rook sailed slowly overhead from Hensol wood. He was seeking the early worm.

ly too early for breakfast for a good hour yet, so he flew up again into a bush and preened his feathers, which had been discomposed by the limit

it become so strangely sweet to listen to the simple sounds? Why did the rich Tyrian dye of the dawn touch he

ere-there

can't you see, c

e secret,

know it, did y

hear me

e forest I

sweet

ou but

ld lo

et and pur

and mor

it, I l

do you,

s love-song. Now it

by the red light of

alph's Gre

ed lips, broad

oven hands, ho

answer, what

ve, the whiten

ve, and the da

bright sun, as

mirth, gleami

-wanting-how sh

ve, the whiten

ve, and the da

rue love, servi

h-trust, here on

tory, surely

ve, the whiten

ve, and the da

no more than a leaf blown to her by chance winds. It might have been written for any other, only she knew that it was not. Ralph Peden had said nothing. The poem certainly did not suggest a student of divinity in the Kirk of the Marrow. There were a thousand objections-a thousand reasons- every one valid, against such a thing. But love that laughs at

hear!

dear

far away

m pass t

rieoo! so ten

ppiwee, oh, tr

cheer up

and he'll

s you and

him do it,

aim that it went in an entirely opposite direction, a quaint, pink seashell at the bird, a shell which had been given her by a lad who was going away a

the mavis indigna

bed well content, and pillowed her