Now if these few sentences, uttered by those two young people in the noisy railway station, be taken by themselves and regarded, they will be found to consist of the dullest commonplace.  No two strangers in all that crowd could have addressed each other in a more indifferent fashion.  But the trivial nothings which the mouth utters may become possessed of awful import when accompanied by the language of the eyes; and the poor commonplace sentences may be taken up and translated so that they shall stand written across the memory in letters of flashing sunlight and the colors of June. “Ought we to take tickets?” There was not much poetry in the phrase but she lifted her eyes just then.

And now Colonel Ross and his wife appeared, accompanied by the only other friend they could get at such short notice to join this scratch party—­a demure little old lady who had a very large house on Campden Hill which everybody coveted.  They were just in time to get comfortably seated in the spacious saloon carriage that had been reserved for them.  The train slowly glided out of the station, and then began to rattle away from the midst of London.  Glimpses of a keener blue began to appear.  The gardens were green with the foliage of the early summer; martins swept across the still pools, a spot of white when they got into the shadow.  And Miss White would have as many windows open as possible, so that the sweet June air swept right through the long carriage.

And was she not a very child in her enjoyment of this sudden escape into the country?  The rapid motion, the silvery light, the sweet air, the glimpses of orchards, and farm-houses, and millstreams—­all were a delight to her; and although she talked in a delicate, half-reserved, shy way with that low voice of hers, still there was plenty of vivacity and gladness in her eyes.  They drove from Gravesend station to the river-side.  They passed through the crowd waiting to see the yachts start.  They got on board the steamer; and at the very instant that Macleod stepped from the gangway on to the deck, the military band on board, by some strange coincidence, struck up “A Highland lad my love was born.”  Mrs. Ross laughed, and wondered whether the band-master had recognized her husband.

And now they turned to the river; and there were the narrow and shapely cutters, with their tall spars, and their pennons fluttering in the sunlight.  They lay in two tiers across the river, four in each tier, the first row consisting of small forty-tonners, the more stately craft behind.  A brisk northeasterly wind was blowing, causing the bosom of the river to flash in ripples of light.  Boats of every size and shape moved up and down and across the stream.  The sudden firing of a gun caused some movement among the red-capped mariners of the four yachts in front.

“They are standing by the main halyards,” said Colonel Ross to his women-folk.  “Now watch for the next signal.”