The sun was getting low behind the hills when I reached the western foot of Craigendarroch, and, without a pause, began to climb between the glistening branches of the budding oak-trees up to the top. I had no distinct purpose in coming so far, and the faint bark of my own dog, which reached my ears as I was ascending the bare and rocky space which separates the oak-grown lower slope from the fir-crowned summit of the hill, caused me to stop suddenly in surprise and excitement so sharp and so sudden that all the blood in my body seemed to rush to my head, and my heart to continue its action by unwonted, tumultuous leaps. I pulled myself together, not without some consternation at the phenomenon. 'I came up the hill too fast,' I said to myself, and crept up the slabs of rock that now formed a wet and slippery footway among the firs, with a sensation of horror at the thought of Babiole's trusting her little feet on such a treacherous path. At the top, a little way beyond the cairn, I came upon her suddenly. She was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, looking out to the western hills, across the slopes of which were lying dense, cloud-like mists, white against the blackness of the darkening hillsides. The last red rays of the sinking sun threw upon her face a weird unnatural glow, and caused her moist eyes to glisten like strange gems in the sun-lit marble of her still features. The wild sweet sadness of her expression, like that of a gentle animal who has been stricken, and does not know why, brought a lump into my throat, and caused me to halt at some distance from her with a feeling of shy respect. Ta-ta, who sat by her side, with a sensitively-dilating nose on the young girl's knee, saw me at once, but merely wagged her tail as an apologetic intimation that I must excuse her from attendance on me, as she had weightier business on hand than mere idle frisking about my heels. But the movement in her companion attracted Babiole's attention; she turned her head, saw me, and started up. The spell was broken; she was in a moment the sweet smiling Babiole of every day. But I could not so soon get over the shock of the first sight of her face: I had seemed to read vague prophecies in the wide sad eyes. I smiled and held out my hand, but I left it to her to open the conversation. CHAPTER XIII 'It's very nice up here, isn't it, Mr. Maude?' Babiole said, after a few seconds' search for an opening remark. 'But it's much too late for you to be out here by yourself.' 'Yes. I had forgotten it was so late,' she said humbly, with a sensitive blush at my mild reproof. 'Poor mamma wanted to be quiet, and told me to go out; so I came here.' She was winding about her the thick plaid she always carried when the weather was cold; and this, when adjusted Highland fashion across the shoulder, made her, in conjunction with the knitted Tam-o'-Shanter cap she wore, a most picturesque and appropriate figure among the dead heather and the fir-trees.