It was a natural thing to be in love with Winsome Charteris.  It seemed natural to Winsome herself.  Ever since she was a little lass running to school in Keswick, with a touse of lint-white locks blowing out in the gusts that came swirling off Skiddaw, Winsome had always been conscious of a train of admirers.  The boys liked to carry her books, and were not so ashamed to walk home with her, as even at six years of age young Cumbrians are wont to be in the company of maids.  Since she came to Galloway, and opened out with each succeeding year, like the bud of a moss rose growing in a moist place, Winsome had thought no more of masculine admiration than of the dull cattle that “goved” [stared stupidly] upon her as she picked her deft way among the stalls in the byre.  In all Craig Ronald there was nothing between the hill and the best room that did not bear the mark of Winsome’s method and administrative capacity.  In perfect dependence upon Winsome, her granny had gradually abandoned all the management of the house to her, so that at twenty that young woman was a veritable Napoleon of finance and capacity.  Only old Richard Clelland of the Boreland, grave and wise pillar of the kirk by law established, still transacted her market business and banked her siller—­being, as he often said, proud to act as “doer” for so fair a principal.  So it happened that all the reins of government about this tiny lairdship of one farm were in the strong and capable hands of a girl of twenty.

And Meg Kissock was her true admirer and faithful slave—­Winsome’s heavy hand, too, upon occasion; for all the men on the farm stood in awe of Meg’s prowess, and very especially of Meg’s tongue.  So also the work fell mostly upon these two, and in less measure upon a sister of Meg’s, Jess Kissock, lately returned from England, a young lady whom we have already met.

During the night and morning Winsome had studied with some attention the Hebrew Bible, in which the name Allan Welsh appeared, as well as the Latin Luther Commentary, and the Hebrew Lexicon, on the first page of which the name of Ralph Peden was written in the same neat print hand as in the note-book.

This was the second day of the blanket-washing, and Winsome, having in her mind a presentiment that the proprietor of these learned quartos would appear to claim his own, carried them down to the bridge, where Meg and her sister were already deep in the mysteries of frothing tubs and boiling pots.  Winsome from the broomy ridge could hear the shrill “giff-gaff” [give and take] of their colloquy.  She sat down under Ralph’s very broom bush, and absently turned over the leaves of the note-book, catching sentences here and there.

“I wonder how old he is?” she said, meditatively; “his coat-tails looked old, but the legs went too lively for an old man; besides, he likes maids to be dressed in lilac—­” She paused still more thoughtfully.  “Well, we shall see.”  She bent over and pulled the milky-stalked, white-seeded head of a dandelion.  Taking it between the finger and thumb of her left hand she looked critically at it as though it were a glass of wine.  “He is tall, and he is fair, and his age is—­”