“My father will be as much pleased with you as I,” said Ralph, with enthusiasm.

“No doubt,” said Winsome, laughing; “fathers always are with their sons’ sweethearts.  But you have not forgotten something else?”

“What may that be?” said Ralph doubtfully.

“That I cannot leave my grandfather and grandmother at Craig Ronald as they are.  They have cared for me and given me a home when I had not a friend.  Would you love me as you do, if I could leave them even to go out into the world with you?”

“No,” said Ralph very reluctantly, but like a man.

“Then,” said Winsome bravely, “go to Edinburgh.  Fight your own battle, and mine,” she added.

“Winsome,” said Ralph, earnestly, for this serious and practical side of her character was an additional and unexpected revelation of perfection, “if you make as good a wife as you make a sweetheart, you will make one man happy.”

“I mean to make a man happy,” said Winsome, confidently.

The scenery again asserted its claim to attention.  Observation enlarges the mind, and is therefore pleasant.

After a pause, Winsome said irrelevantly.

“And you really do not think me so foolish?”

“Foolish!  I think you are the wisest and—­”

“No, no.”  Winsome would not let him proceed.  “You do not really think so.  You know that I am wayward and changeable, and not at all what I ought to be.  Granny always tells me so.  It was very different when she was young, she says.  Do you know,” continued Winsome thoughtfully, “I used to be so frightened, when I knew that you could read in all these wise books of which I did not know a letter?  But I must confess—­I do not know what you will say, you may even be angry—­I have a note-book of yours which I kept.”

But if Winsome wanted a new sensation she was disappointed, for Ralph was by no means angry.

“So that’s where it went?” said Ralph, smiling gladly.

“Yes,” said Winsome, blushing not so much with guilt as with the consciousness of the locality of the note-book at that moment, which she was not yet prepared to tell him.  But she consoled herself with the thought that she would tell him one day.

Strangely however, Ralph did not seem to care much about the book, so Winsome changed the subject to one of greater interest.

“And what else did you think about me that first day?—­tell me,” said Winsome, shamelessly.

It was Ralph’s opportunity.

“Why, you know very well, Winsome dear, that ever since the day I first saw you I have thought that there never was any one like you—­”

“Yes?” said Winsome, with a rising inflection in her voice.

“I ever thought you the best and the kindest—­”

“Yes?” said Winsome, a little breathlessly.

“The most helpful and the wisest—­”

“Yes?” said Winsome.

“And the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life!”