She paused to note the effect of this tremendous discovery.

"Then," replied Ralph, "if it be indeed my own self I see in your eyes, it is myself as God made me at first without sin. I do not feel at all like a cherub now, but I must have been once, if I ever was like what I see in your eyes."

"Now go on; tell me what else you see," said Winsome.

"Your lips—" began Ralph, and paused.

"No, six is quite enough," said Winsome, after a little while, mysteriously. She had only two, and Ralph only two; yet she said with little grammar and no sense at all, "Six is enough."

But a voice from quite other lips came over the rising background of scrub and tangled thicket.

"Gang on coortin'," it said; "I'm no lookin', an' I canna see onything onyway."

It was Jock Gordon. He continued:

"Jock Scott's gane hame till his breakfast. He'll no bother ye this mornin', sae coort awa'."

CHAPTEE XXXV.