A heavy stupor is on Menie’s mind, lightened only with gleams of wild anxiety, with fruitless self-questionings, which she fain would restrain, but cannot. Jenny, firm in the belief that she has seen a spirit, is melancholy and mysterious, and asks suggestive questions—whether they have heard if there is “ony great trouble in London ’enow,” or who it was that was prayed for in the kirk last Sabbath—a young man in great distress. Mrs Laurie, uneasy and solicitous, cannot stay these pitiful looks which unawares she turns upon her daughter, and hangs perpetually about her with tender touches, consoling words, and smiles, till poor Menie’s heart is like to break. The day’s work is over in Jenny’s “redd-up kitchen;”—the uneven earthen floor is carefully swept—the hearth as white and the fireside as brilliant as Jenny’s elaborate care can make them; and Jenny has drawn aside a little the sliding pannel which closes in her bed, to show the light patch-work quilt, and snowy linen of the “owrelay.” Bright brass and pewter carefully polished above the high mantel-shelf—bright plates and crockery against the walls—with a glance of satisfaction Jenny surveyed the whole as she passed into the private corner where she made her toilette—a “wiselike” kitchen; it was worthy of Jenny. And now, in her blue and yellow gown, in her black and red checked plaiden shawl, in her great Leghorn bonnet, fashioned in antique times, Jenny sets out from the cottage door. No one knows where Jenny is going, and there has been some surprise “ben the house” at her intimation of her proposed absence. But Jenny keeps her own counsel, and walks away soberly, seeing Mrs Laurie at the window, in the direction of Burnside. “Nae occasion to let the haill town see the gate Jenny was gaun,” she says to herself, with a slight fuff; and, altering her course before she reaches the Brigend, Jenny turns rapidly towards the hills. And something of growing gravity, almost awe, is on Jenny’s face. “Eh, puir callant, he’s young to take fareweel o’ this life. Weel, laddie, mony’s the time Jenny’s grutten for ye; and maybe it’s best, after a’, if ane could but think sae.” These lamentations fall like so many tears on Jenny’s way—and she is rapidly climbing the brae, as she utters them, towards the house of Crofthill. It is a wintry autumn afternoon—so dull, that the potato-gatherers in the fields are chilled into silence, and the ploughmen scarcely can whistle into the heavy atmosphere which droops upon them laden with unfallen rain. The paths of the little triangular garden of Crofthill are choked with masses of brown leaves, fallen from the trees, which sway their thin remaining foliage drearily, hanging lank from the crest of the hill. The goodman is thrashing to-day; you can hear the heavy tramp of the horses, the swing of the primitive machine: it is almost the only sound that breaks the silence of the place.