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Bringing his glance down from the skies, the young man turned it to the face of the maiden near him, and was startled at her marvellous beauty-beauty now heightened by the effect of the changeful colours that played around her. The very boat in which she sat glittered with a bronze-like, metallic brightness as it heaved gently to and fro on the silvery green water; the midnight sunshine bathed the falling glory of her long hair, till each thick tress, each clustering curl, appeared to emit an amber spark of light. The strange, weird effect of the sky seemed to have stolen into her eyes, making them shine with witch-like brilliancy, the varied radiance flashing about her brought into strong relief the pureness of her profile, drawing as with a fine pencil the out lines of her noble forehead, sweet mouth, and rounded chin. It touched the scarlet of her bodice, and brightened the quaint old silver clasps she wore at her waist and throat, till she seemed no longer an earthly being, but more like some fair wandering sprite from the legendary Norse kingdom of Alfheim, the "abode of the Luminous Genii."

She was gazing upwards,-heavenwards, and her expression was one of rapt and almost devotional intensity. Thus she remained for some moments, motionless as the picture of an expectant angel painted by Raffaelle or Correggio; then reluctantly and with a deep sigh she turned her eyes towards earth again. In so doing she met the fixed and too visibly admiring gaze of her companion. She started, and a wave of vivid colour flushed her cheeks. Quickly recovering her serenity, however, she saluted him slightly, and, moving her oars in unison, was on the point of departure.

Stirred by an impulse he could not resist, he laid one hand detainingly on the rim of her boat.

"Are you going now ?" he asked.

She raised her eyebrows in some little surprise and smiled. "Going?" she repeated.

home as it is."

"Why, yes! I shall be late in getting

"Stop a moment," he said eagerly, feeling that he could not let this beautiful creature leave him as utterly as a midsummer night's dream without some clue as to her origin and destination.

you not tell me your name?"

She drew herself erect with a look of indignation.

"Will

"Sir, I do not know you. give their names to strangers."

The maidens of Norway do not

"Pardon me," he replied, somewhat abashed. "I mean no offence. We have watched the midnight sun together, and-and -I thought—____”

He paused, feeling very foolish, and unable to conclude his

sentence.

She looked at him demurely from under her long, curling lashes.

"You will often find a peasant-girl on the shores of the Altenfjord watching the midnight sun at the same time as yourself," she said, and there was a suspicion of laughter in her voice. "It is not unusual. It is not even necessary that you should remember so little a thing."

"Necessary or not, I shall never forget it," he said with sudden impetuosity. "You are no peasant! Come; if I give you my name will you still deny me yours ?"

Her delicate brows drew together in a frown of haughty and decided refusal. "No names please my ears save those that are familiar," she said, with intense coldness. "We shall not meet again. Farewell !"

And without further word or look, she leaned gracefully to the oars, and pulling with a long, steady, resolute stroke, the little boat darted away as lightly and swiftly as a skimming swallow out on the shimmering water. He stood gazing after it till it became a distant speck sparkling like a diamond in the light of sky and wave, and when he could no more watch it with unassisted eyes, he took up his field-glass and followed its course attentively. He saw it cutting along as straightly as an arrow, then suddenly it dipped round to the westward, apparently making straight for some shelving rocks, that projected far into the Fjord. It reached them; it grew less and less-it disappeared. At the same time the lustre of the heavens gave way to a pale pearl-like uniform gray tint, that stretched far and wide, folding up as in a mantle all the regal luxury of the Sun-king's palace. The subtle odour and delicate chill of the coming dawn stole freshly across the water. A light haze rose and obscured the opposite islands. Something of the tender melancholy of autumn, though it was late June, toned down the aspect of the before brilliant landscape. A lark

rose swiftly from its nest in an adjacent meadow, and, soaring higher and higher, poured from its tiny throat a cascade of delicious melody. The midnight sun no longer shone at midnight; his face smiled with a sobered serenity through the faint early mists of approaching morning.

CHAPTER II.

"Viens doncje te chanterai des chansons que les esprits des cimetières m'ont apprises !"-MATURIN.

"BAFFLED!" he exclaimed, with a slight vexed laugh, as the boat vanished from his sight. "By a woman, tco! Who would have thought it?"

Who would have thought it, indeed! Sir Philip Bruce Errington, Baronet, the wealthy and desirable parti for whom many matchmaking mothers had stood knee-deep in the chilly though sparkling waters of society, ardently plying rod and line with patient persistence, vainly hoping to secure him as a husband for one of their highly proper and passionless daughters,―he, the admired, long-sought-after "eligible," was suddenly rebuffed, flouted -by whom? A stray princess, or a peasant? He vaguely wondered, as he lit a cigar and strolled up and down on the shore, meditating, with a puzzled, almost annoyed expression on his handsome features. He was not accustomed to slights of any kind, however trifling; his position being commanding and enviable enough to attract flattery and friendship from most people. He was the only son of a baronet as renowned for eccentricity as for wealth. He had been the spoilt darling of his mother; and now, both his parents being dead, he was alone in the world, heir to his father's revenues and entire master of his own actions. And as part of the penalty he had to pay for being rich and good-looking to boot, he was so much run after by women that he found it hard to understand the haughty indifference with which he had just been treated, by one of the most fair, if not the fairest, of her sex. He was piqued, and his amour propre was wounded.

"I'm sure my question was harmless enough," he mused, half crossly. "She might have answered it."

He glanced out impatiently over the Fjord. There was no sign of his returning yacht as yet.

"What a time those fellows are !" he said to himself.

"If

the pilot were not on board, I should begin to think they had run the Eulalie aground."

He finished his cigar and threw the end of it into the water; then he stood moodily watching the ripples as they rolled softly up and caressed the shining brown shore at his feet, thinking all the while of that strange girl, so wonderfully lovely in face and form, so graceful and proud of bearing, with her great blue eyes and masses of dusky gold hair.

His meeting with her was a sort of adventure in its way-the first of the kind he had had for some time. He was subject to fits of weariness or caprice, and it was in one of these that he had suddenly left London in the height of the season, and had started for Norway on a yachting cruise with three chosen companions, one of whom, George Lorimer, once an Oxford fellow-student, was now his "chum "-the Pythias to his Damon, the fidus Achates of his closest confidence. Through the unexpected wakening up of energy in the latter young gentleman, who was usually of a most sleepy and indolent disposition, he happened to be quite alone on this particular occasion, though, as a general rule, he was accom panied in his rambles by one if not all three of his friends. Utter solitude was with him a rare occurrence, and his present experience of it had chanced in this wise. Lorimer the languid, Lorimer the lazy; Lorimer, who had remained blandly unmoved and drowsy through all the magnificent panorama of the Norwegian coast, including the Sogne Fjord and the toppling peaks of the Justedäl glaciers; Lorimer, who had slept peacefully in a hammock on deck, even while the yacht was passing under the looming splendours of Melsnipa; Lorimer, now that he had arrived at the Altenfjord, then at its loveliest in the full glory of the continuous sunshine, developed a new turn of mind, and began to show sudden and abnormal interest in the scenery. In this humour he expressed his desire to "take a sight" of the midnight sun from the island of Seiland, and also declared his resolve to try the nearly impossible ascent of the great Jedkè glacier. Errington laughed at the idea. you are going in for climbing.

"Don't tell me," he said, "that And do you suppose I believe

that you are interested-you of all people—in the heavenly bodies ?"

66 Why not ?" asked Lorimer, with a candid smile. "I'm not in the least interested in earthly bodies, except my own. The sun's a jolly fellow. I sympathize with him in his present condition. He's in his cups-that's what's the matter-and he can't be persuaded to go to bed. I know his feelings perfectly; and I want to survey his gloriously inebriated face from another point of view. Don't laugh, Phil; I'm in earnest! And I really have quite a curiosity to try my skill in amateur mountaineering. Jedkè's the very place for a first effort. It offers difficulties, and "—this with a slight yawn-"I like to surmount difficulties; it's rather amusing."

His mind was so evidently set upon the excursion, that Sir Philip made no attempt to dissuade him from it, but excused himself from accompanying the party on the plea that he wanted to finish a sketch he had recently begun. So that when the Eulalie got up her steam, weighed anchor, and swept gracefully away towards the coast of the adjacent islands, her owner was left, at his desire, to the seclusion of a quiet nook on the shore of the Altenfjord, where he succeeded in making a bold and vivid picture of the scene before him. The colours of the sky had, however, defied his palette, and after one or two futile attempts to transfer to his canvas a few of the gorgeous tints that illumined the landscape, he gave up the task in despair, and resigned himself to the dolce far niente of absolute enjoyment. From his half-pleasing, half-melancholy reverie the voice of the unknown maiden had startled him, and now,-now she had left him to resume it if he chose,—left him, in chill displeasure, with a cold yet brilliant flash of something like scorn in her wonderful eyes.

Since her departure the scenery, in some unaccountable way, seemed less attractive to him; the songs of the birds, who were all awake, fell on inattentive ears; he was haunted by her face and voice, and he was, moreover, a little out of humour with himself for having been such a blunderer as to give her offence, and thus leave an unfavourable impression on her mind.

"I suppose I was rude," he considered after a while. "She seemed to think so, at any rate. By Jove! what a crushing look she gave me! A peasant? Not she! If she had said she was

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