Now the hand was in the glove, the statue in the niche, the bow upon the string, the spark in the tinder, the sea through the dike.

Now what had reached being must take its course.
He felt that so fatally that he did not think of resistance....
Elspeth, upon the grassy cape, beneath the blooming thorn, heard steps down the glen path, and turned her eyes to see the young laird moving between the birch stems.

Now he was level with the holding; now he spoke to her, lifting his hat.

She answered, with the smile beneath her eyes: "Aye, Glenfernie, it's a braw day!" "May I come into the fairy country and sit awhile and visit ?" "Aye." She welcomed him to a hillock of green rising from the water's edge.

"It _is_ fairyland, and these are the broad seas around, and I know if I came here by night I should find the Good People before me!" She looked at him with friendliness, half shy, half frank.