He shook off Estelle's touch, walked to the mantel-piece, and, taking a match from the china case, drew it across the heel of his boot.
"Where is Loch Maree? I do not remember ever to have seen the name," said Mrs. Murray, pushing aside her coffee-cup.
"Oh! pardon me, mother, if I decline to undertake your geographical education. Ask that incipient Isotta Nogarole, sitting there at your right hand. Doubtless she will find it a pleasing task to instruct you in Scottish topography, while I have an engagement that forces me most reluctantly and respectfully to decline the honor of enlightening you. Confound these matches! they are all damp."
Involuntarily Mrs. Murray's eyes turned to Edna, who had not even glanced at St. Elmo since her entrance. Now she looked up, and though she had not read Pennant, she remembered the lines written on the old Druidic well by an American poet. Yielding to some inexplicable impulse, she slowly and gently repeated two verses: "'Oh, restless heart and fevered brain! Unquiet and unstable. That holy well of Loch Maree Is more than idle fable! The shadows of a humble will And contrite heart are o'er it: Go read its legend--"TRUST IN GOD"-- On Faith's white stones before it!'"