"What would she think of this ?" "How that would please her!" were sentences spoken often by the tongue of his fancy.

He found charm in her presence after his bachelor solitude; her demure gravity pleased him; but that he should be led bond-slave by love--that was a matter he valiantly denied.
II The sheepfolds of Etterick lie in a little fold of glen some two miles from the dwelling, where the heathy tableland, known all over the glen as "The Muirs," relieves the monotony of precipitous hills.

On this day it was alert with life.

The little paddock was crammed with sheep, and more stood huddling in the pens.

Within was the liveliest scene, for there a dozen herds sat on clipping-stools each with a struggling ewe between his knees, and the ground beneath him strewn with creamy folds of fleece.