Kilmeny of the Orchard

trysts, bluntly told Kilmeny that she must not make such an equal of Neil as she had done.

“ You have been too kind to the lad, lassie, and he’s got presumptuous. He must be taught his place. I mistrust we have all made more of him than we should.”

But most of the idyllic hours of Eric’s wooing were spent in the old orchard; the garden end of it was now a wilder- ness of roses—roses red as the heart of a sunset, roses pink as the early flush of dawn, roses white as the snows on mountain peaks, roses full blown, and roses in buds that were sweeter than any— thing on earth except Kilmeny’s face. Their petals fell in silken heaps along the old paths or clung to the lush grasses among which Eric lay and dreamed, while Kilmeny played to him on her Violin.

Eric promised himself that when she was his wife her wonderful gift for music should be cultivated to the utmost. Her

I76