60 TROUT FISHING 



there is about a well-kept estate in that 

 region a beauty which, in one of its many 

 moods, almost dwindles into prettiness. 

 Everything is so clean, and, in the vast 

 expanses, so tidy, that, when just arrived 

 from a town bestrewn with dust or mud, 

 and littered with the vagrant scraps 

 of waste cast upon the streets by the 

 community of millions, one wonders what 

 to do with the match when a cigarette is 

 lit. To be negligent with it in this stately 

 place would be like throwing it upon the 

 floor of a drawing-room. In winter, 

 which often is until April is well estab- 

 lished, this prettiness of the Highlands is 

 intensified. At that time, save where the 

 black crags on the hills are too precipitous 

 to catch the snows, all the towering land 

 is white : dazzling white, if the sun shines 

 unclouded, in the daytime ; softly white, 

 if the frost is holding, with a faint rose 

 hue on the irregular peaks, as the shade 

 of the early twilight creeps slowly up- 

 ward, gray. Also, the Highlands seem 

 smaller. Surely, though it tops all the 



