"But why not leave it as it is," said Ingram--"a solitary costume produced by certain conditions of climate and duties, acting in conjunction with a natural taste for harmonious coloring and simple form? That dress, I will maintain, sprang as naturally from the salt sea as Aphrodite did; and the man who suspects artifice in it, or invention, has had his mind perverted by the skepticism of modern society."
"Is my dress so very wonderful?" said Sheila, with a grave complacence. "I am pleased that the Lewis has produced such a fine thing, and perhaps you would like me to tell you its history. It was my papa bought a piece of blue serge in Stornoway: it cost three shillings sixpence a yard, and a dressmaker in Stornoway cut it for me, and I made it myself. That is all the history of the wonderful dress."
Suddenly Sheila seized her husband's arm. They had got down to the river by Mortlake; and there, on the broad bosom of the stream, a long and slender boat was shooting by, pulled by four oarsmen clad in white flannel.
"How can they go out in such a boat?" said Sheila, with great alarm visible in her eyes. "It is scarcely a boat at all; and if they touch a rock, or if the wind catches them--"
"Don't be frightened, Sheila," said her husband. "They are quite safe. There are no rocks in our rivers, and the wind does not give us squalls here like those on Loch Roag. You will see hundreds of those boats by and by, and perhaps you yourself will go out in one."
"Oh, never, never!" she said, almost with a shudder.
"Why, if the people here heard you they would not know how brave a sailor you are. You are not afraid to go out at night by yourself on the sea, and you won't go on a smooth inland river--"
"But those boats: if you touch them they must go over."
She seemed glad to get away from the river. She could not be persuaded of the safety of the slender craft of the Thames; and indeed, for some time after seemed so strangely depressed that Lavender begged and prayed of her to tell him what was the matter. It was simple enough. She had heard him speak of his boating adventures. Was it in such boats as that she had just seen? and might he not be some day going out in one of them and an accident--the breaking of an oar, a gust of wind--