"'Eean.'
"'I'll pray for ye, Eean, and so will mother.'
"It was a month after this conversation ere I could stroll about the beach, and paint rock and cloud effects. The girl was seldom with me. She would be away out at sea casting nets with her father, and in her simplest attire, to my eyes, she always made the prettiest picture.
"Boys, this story of mine is in some measure a confession. I have at all events confessed to you already how idle and how vain I was, and now I am going to give you another illustration of my vanity I made up my mind then to make this girl my wife. I positively thought I had only to go in and win.
"I was well now, and it was only for her sake I still lingered in the village. I had taken up my abode at the village inn because, though they had nursed me back to life, those kindly fisher people positively refused to accept of anything in the shape of pecuniary reward. All that I was permitted to do was to paint the old couple sitting together Bible in hand on the stone dais in front of their little cottage door.
"So one day I called on the mother, but was not displeased to find the girl there too.
"I soon stated the object of this particular visit.
"'I intended,' I said, 'to make her daughter my wife.'
"A quick flush came over the girl's face. She glanced just once in my direction, then bent again over her white seam.
"'You intend,' said the old lady, 'to make my daughter your wife. O, sir, do you think sae little of us, that ye imagine ye hae only to command? We are only poor fisher-folks, sir, but we have the pride of honesty in our hearts. Na, na, na, sir, there is a great gulf fixed 'twixt you and us. Gang awa', sir, gang awa', and marry some gentle dame, that ye can introduce to your dear lady mother. May every blessin' on earth he yours, sir. We're nae insensible to the honour ye would do us. Dinna think us ungrateful—' here the good old soul broke down and cried—'but gang and leave us to our poverty and our honest toil.'