Houstoun was beginning to wake to somewhat of noble scorn in viewing his own position--beginning to feel that to amuse himself was an object hardly worthy a _man's_ life. Turning forcibly from such thoughts, he sprang down the steps, and pursued a path leading by the orchard and through a flowery lane, towards the dwelling of the farmer to whom the management of the Glen had been intrusted, first by Sir Edward and afterwards by Lady Houstoun. The sun was just touching with a sapphire tint the few clouds that specked the eastern sky; the branches of the wild rose and mountain laurel which skirted the lane on the right were heavy with the dews of night, and the birds seemed caroling their earliest song in the orchard and clover-field on the left, yet the farmer's horses were already harnessed to the wagon, and through the open door of the house Edward Houstoun as he approached caught a glimpse of Farmer Pye himself and his men seated at breakfast. As he was not perceived by them, he passed on, without interrupting them, to the dairy, where the good dame was busy with her white pails and bright pans. A calico bonnet with a very deep front concealed his approach from Mrs. Pye until he stood beside her; but there was one within the dairy who saw him, and whose coquettish movement in snatching from her glossy brown ringlets a bonnet of the same unbecoming shape with that of Mrs. Pye, did not escape his observation. "Well, now--did I ever see the like! Why, Mr. Edward, you've grown clean out of a body's memory--but after all, nobody couldn't help knowing you that ever seen your papa, good gentleman--how much you are like him!" Thus ran on Dame Pye, while Edward, except when compelled by a question to attend to her, was wondering who the fair girl could be, who was separated from her companion not less by the tasteful arrangement of her dress--simple and even coarse as it was in its material--and by a certain grace of movement, than by her delicate beauty. Her form was slender in proportion to its height, yet gave in its graceful outline promise of a development "rich in all woman's loveliness;" and her face, with its dark starry eyes, its clear, transparent skin, and rich, waving curls of glossy brown, recalled so vividly to Edward Houstoun's memory his favorite description of beauty, that he repeated almost audibly:-- "One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impair'd the nameless grace That waves in every glossy tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face, Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling-place." His admiration, if not audible, was sufficiently evident to its object--at least so we interpret her tremulous and uncertain movements, the eloquent blood which glowed in her cheeks, and the mistakes which at length aroused Mrs. Pye's attention.