The road lies broad and white before me, and I see Nathan's tall, gaunt figure passing Longmire Mains, and I know the smell of the sweet American gean is in his nostrils, and his gardener's eye is on the fronded hart's-tongue ferns which here and there peep from the crevices of the lichen-covered dike; by Meadow Bank, where the purple bloom still crowns the spiked leaf branch of the rhododendron; on between the hollies and silver birches at Dabton; through the sleepy village of Carronbrig, where he is joined by moleskin-clad fellow-workers. Staff in hand and pipe in mouth, at that regulation pace which is well known as 'the Duke's step,' each wends his way through the green turf holm, across the Nith by the stepping-stones, under the shadow of the ruin-crowned Tibbers mound. As they near the scene of their daily darg, tobacco 'dottles' are paper-padded and made secure, pipes are deposited in sleeved-vest pockets, and where the white iron wicket clicks and admits them to the low-lying stretch of fairy garden plots and multi-coloured perfumed bowers I take my leave of them. God grant I may soon be able to see with the living eye, and feel with the nature-loving heart, the beauties and joys which now in imagination only are mine! By degrees, and at rare intervals, Betty has relieved her mind to me regarding Nathan. When I say 'relieved her mind,' I do not imply that there is anything in Nathan's conduct or any remissness in his mode of living which burdens Betty's thoughts. Far from it. Nathan is the best of husbands--appreciative, kind, steady, and considerate. His wages--to the uttermost farthing--are regularly given up to Betty's safe keeping. All his spare hours are devoted to the large garden, whose produce from January till December makes Betty's daily dinner of the bienest. Her slightest wish is a command which he obeys with cheerfulness and alacrity, and the quiet and composure of his presence is, I know, her secret pride and mainstay. Yet she seems to be ever apologising for his being about, and in speaking of him to me she invariably refers to him as 'Nathan, puir falla,' with just the slightest suggestion of commiseration in her tone.