“CHARTER-HOUSE.

“This place is well described by three things—­magnificence, munificence and religious government.  The first shows the wealth of the founder; the second, the means to make the good thing done durable; the third demonstrates his intent that thus established it....  This one place hath sent many a famous member to the universities, and not a few to the wars.  The deed of this man that so ordered this house is much spoken of and commended; but there’s none (except only one—­Sion College) that hath as yet either striven to equal or imitate that, and I fear never will.”]

A PRINCESS OF THULE

BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF “THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON.”

CHAPTER IV.

ROMANCE-TIME.

Early morning at Borva, fresh, luminous and rare; the mountains in the south grown pale and cloud-like under a sapphire sky; the sea ruffled into a darker blue by a light breeze from the west:  and the sunlight lying hot on the red gravel and white shells around Mackenzie’s house.  There is an odor of sweetbrier about, hovering in the warm, still air, except at such times as the breeze freshens a bit, and brings round the shoulder of the hill the cold, strange scent of the rocks and the sea beyond.

And on this fresh and pleasant morning Sheila sat in the big garden seat in front of the house, talking to the stranger to whom she had been introduced the day before.  He was no more a stranger, however, to all appearance, for what could be more frank and friendly than their conversation, or more bright and winning than the smile with which she frequently turned to speak or to listen?  Of course this stranger could not be her friend as Mr. Ingram was—­that was impossible.  But he talked a great deal more than Mr. Ingram, and was apparently more anxious to please and be pleased; and indeed was altogether very winning and courteous and pleasant in his ways.  Beyond this vague impression, Sheila ventured upon no further comparison between the two men.  If her older friend had been down, she would doubtless have preferred talking to him about all that had happened in the island since his last visit; but here was this newer friend thrown, as it were, upon her hospitality, and eager, with a most respectful and yet simple and friendly interest, to be taught all that Ingram already knew.  Was he not, too, in mere appearance like one of the princes she had read of in many an ancient ballad—­tall and handsome and yellow-haired, fit to have come sailing over the sea, with a dozen merry comrades, to carry off some sea-king’s daughter to be his bride?  Sheila began to regret that the young man knew so little about the sea and the northern islands and those old-time stories; but then he was very anxious to learn.

“You must say Mach-Klyoda instead of Macleod,” she was saying to him, “if you like Styornoway better than Stornoway.  It is the Gaelic, that is all.”