“You rise early,” he said, glancing shyly down at Winsome, who seemed to have forgotten his presence.  He did not wish her to forget.  He had no objection to her dreaming, if only she would dream about him.

Winsome turned the bewildering calmness of her eyes upon him.  A gentleman, they say, is calm-eyed.  So is a cow.  But in the eye of a good woman there is a peace which comes from many generations of mothers—­who, every one Christs in their way, have suffered their heavier share of the Eden curse.

Ralph would have given all that he possessed—­which, by the way, was not a great deal—­to be able to assure himself that there was any hesitancy or bashfulness in the glance which met his own.  But Winsome’s eyes were as clearly and frankly blue as if God had made them new that morning.  At least Ralph looked upon their Sabbath peace and gave thanks, finding them very good.

A sparkle of laughter, at first silent and far away, sprang into them, like a breeze coming down Loch Grannoch when it lies asleep in the sun, sending shining sparkles winking shoreward, and causing the wavering golden lights on the shallow sand of the bays to scatter tremulously.  So in the depths of Winsome’s eyes glimmered the coming smile.  Winsome could be divinely serious, but behind there lay the possibility and certainty of very frank earthly laughter.  If, as Ralph thought, not for the first time in this rough island story, this girl were an angel, surely she was one to whom her Maker had given that rarest gift given to woman—­ a well-balanced sense of humour.

So when Ralph said, hardly knowing what he said, “You rise early,” it was with that far-away intention of a smile that Winsome replied: 

“And you, sir, have surely not lagged in bed, or else you have come here in a great hurry.”

“I rose,” returned Ralph, “certainly betimes—­in fact, a great while before day; it is the time when one can best know one’s self.”

The sententiousness, natural to his years and education, to some extent rebuked Winsome, who said more soberly: 

“Perhaps you have again lost your books of study?”

“I do not always study in books,” answered Ralph.

Winsome continued to look at him as though waiting his explanation.

“I mean,” said Ralph, quickly, his pale cheek touched with red, “that though I am town-bred I love the things that wander among the flowers and in the wood.  There are the birds, too, and the little green plants that have no flow ers, and they all have a message, if I could only hear it and understand it.”

The sparkle in Winsome’s eyes quieted into calm.

“I too—­” she began, and paused as if startled at what she was about to say.  She went on:  “I never heard any one say things like these.  I did not know that any one else had thoughts like these except myself.”

“And have you thought these things?” said Ralph, with a quick joy in his heart.