His tactics had altered, it seemed, and their objective puzzled her.
"It must be very dull for you here, Miss Heyburn," he remarked to her one bright morning as they were casting up-stream near one another.

They were standing not far from a rustic bridge in a deep, leafy glen, where the sunshine penetrated here and there through the canopy of leaves, beneath which the burn pursued its sinuous course towards the Earn.

The music of the rippling waters over the brown, moss-grown boulders mingled with the rustle of the leaves above, as now and then the soft wind swept up the narrow valley.

They were treading a carpet of wild-flowers, and the air was full of the delicious perfume of the summer day.

"You must be very dull, living here so much, and going up to town so very seldom," he said.
"Oh dear no!" she laughed.