The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

514
The Highland Mo7ithly.
His brief but ominous tiff with David now brought
home to him the grave fact—which he had just begun
vaguely to realise, and, of course, he dismissed the thought as
soon as he did so—that as things had drifted (ah ! how
pleasant was the drifting !) a crisis was imminent in his
love-makings. The lane, flower-grown and bird-sung, as
it were, down which he had been wandering, terminated, he
clearly decerned, at cross-roads. They were public turn-
pikes. Neither of them appeared so agreeable travelling as
the by-way, but he would be compelled to chose one ; not
only so, but to select his future company ; and whichever
way he turned a storm seemed to be brewing on the
horizon.
Did he love Flora, to whom he had solemnly plighted
his troth, and who at that moment wore his engagement
ring, and— yes, he must confess it as an important factor in
the situation—cherished the emblem with all the wealth of
a woman's single-hearted affection. From the over-ween-
ing confidence he had in her love had sprung indifference^
and then his folly. After all, the woman is wise who does
not shout her affection on the house-top ; feminine love
should play the effectual part of a Will-o'-the-Wisp. He
had loved Flora ;
or at all events he thought he did, for he
had nobody else to love, until Miss Somerton, brighter,,
vivacious, and more lovely, had stepped in and presented
a personal contrast, which, having an imagination tame as
the tallow of the simile, suggested to him the brilliance of
the modern candle with the dull gleam of the old-fashioned
spoon-lamp.
To thrash the problem out, he took an after-dinner
stroll through the wood, avoiding the beaten paths, and
brushing his way among young trees and broom in search
of that which he had never sought before—solitude. He
had got afraid of the situation. It was a question of duty
and inclination ; or rather of infatuation and mere liking.
Which should win? The Professor's philosophy had
taken deep root in such a selfish nature as Richard's ;
but he