318 LOCH C RE RAN. 



the curled heads of -these still unexpanded fronds ; while 

 the emerald moths, like gems from the mine, are 

 resplendent for a'moment in the sunshine, to sink and 

 lose themselves the __ next among the verdure. What a 

 wonderful fund of beautiful life is around us, and the 

 youth wax eloquent over the beauty of spiders and the 

 surpassing voracity of young black-backed gulls. No 

 wonder our ducklings disappear in the maws of the 

 parents. 



In vain the human chickens are clucked together. At 

 the last moment the two youngest have levanted after 

 some treasure at the far end of the Isle. Where can 

 they be ? is our anxious question. As if there could be 

 any question. We go straight to those young black- 

 backed gulls, and sure enough excited voices and flushed 

 faces, and a carefully tended handfull, tell of another 

 pet added to the household ; and two boys, oblivious of 

 time and distance, tide, and coming darkness, and of all 

 except the pulses of the summer and a vigorous nature 

 filling their hurrying veins, wonder mightily at an 

 anxiety they cannot understand, in face of an untrimmed 

 world akin to their unbroken spirits. 



