He looked at the verses again and again; and the longer he looked at them the less he liked them—he scarcely knew why. Perhaps they were a little too literary? They seemed to lack naturalness and simplicity; at all events, they were not true to Meenie; why should Meenie figure as a flippant coquette? And so he threw them away and turned to his books—not the scientific ones—to hunt out something that was like Meenie. He came near it in Tannahill, but was not quite satisfied. A verse or two in Keats held his fancy for a moment. But at last he found what he wanted in Wordsworth—
'A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye;
—Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.'
Yes; that was liker Meenie—who 'dwelt among the untrodden ways.'
CHAPTER V.
A LESSON IN FLY-FISHING.
Miss Carry Hodson returned from Paris in a very radiant mood; she had had what she called a real good time, and everything connected with the wedding had gone off most successfully. Her dress, that she had ordered long before she came to the Highlands, was a perfect fit; Lily Selden made the most charming and beautiful of brides; and no less a person than a prince (rather swarthy, and hailing from some mysterious region east of the Carpathians) had proposed the health of the bridesmaids, and had made especial mention of the young ladies who had travelled long distances to be present on the auspicious occasion.
However, on the morning after her return to Inver-Mudal her equanimity was somewhat dashed. When she went along the passage to the little hall—to see what the morning was like outside—she found waiting there a respectable-looking elderly Highlander, with grizzled locks, who touched his cap to her, and who had her waterproof over his arm. This last circumstance made her suspicious; instantly she went back to her father.