Page:Cuthbert Bede - The White Wife.djvu/25

6 that she could not possibly have escaped his observation, the thin mist and rain not being sufficient to obscure objects at that short distance. He was beginning to laugh at my fancies, as he called them, when he suddenly paused, and told me to come away quickly and follow him to Ranochan, for that he was losing his time. Of course, I obeyed him; and he continued quite mute and serious, until we had come to the houses of Kilmichael. He then said to me, "Did you ever hear of the White Wife?" I said, "No." And he said, "To think that I should take this way on New Year's morning." I was curious to learn what he meant; but it was not till I was older that he made me acquainted with the story, although I have also heard it from the lips of others, by some of whom the apparition that went by the name of "The White Wife," had also been seen.

She was a young girl whose beauty had attracted the attention of the son of a well-to-do farmer; and the young man had paid his vows to her, and had secured her affections. He wished to marry her; but his father would not listen to this, considering