It was the month of April, and all Nature was sweetly rejoicing in the wealth and beauty of a perfect spring. While spring is ever a pleasant season in rural districts, it was especially so in that rich and picturesque part of Lanarkshire which included the parish and village of Inverburn. It lay in a secluded and lovely valley, sheltered from the north and east by heather-clad hills, while to the west it commanded a magnificent and wide-stretching view of the Vale of Clyde, at the utmost limit of which the smoke from the populous city of Glasgow obscured the clear brightness of the horizon. Although the parish of Inverburn was by no means small, the village itself consisted only of a small main street and a few straggling houses in the outskirts. The only building of any pretensions was the Hamilton Arms Inn, a substantial two-storey block, with a wide, low doorway and a trellised porch set round with benches, a favourite resort for the villagers on the long summer evenings, when honest Mistress Lyall’s parlour became too close and warm to be pleasant. Upon a gentle eminence about a mile removed from the village, the grey turrets of Inverburn, long time the seat of the Hamiltons, peeped out from among its ancestral trees. It was a fine, proud old place, renowned for its beauty and its antiquity even in a district where many a princely heritage reared its stately head. The graceful spire of the parish church intervened, however, between the village and the mansion. It also stood upon a gentle knoll, and was beautifully shaded by the birch trees which were known far and near as the "birks of Inverburn." The manse was close by, a grey and rambling house, just such a one to be hallowed by many precious memories of home and loved ones. It was a common saying that there had been Grays in the manse as long as there had been Hamiltons in Inverburn, so that the one family could claim equal antiquity with its prouder neighbour. There could be no sweeter spot to live and die in than that old-fashioned country manse, standing so cosily amid its wealth of greenery, the roses and honeysuckle and sweet woodbine clambering about doors and windows with a loving clinging touch. It looked fair indeed that mild April evening, for lilac, laburnum, and hawthorn were in flower in the shrubberies, and primrose and polyanthus blooming in the old-fashioned plots before the door. The air about it was sweet and fragrant indeed; but it was more: it breathed something of the peace which dwelt ever under its roof-tree.