The high trees gleaming in the golden sunshine, the dewy bits of shade, and then the broad flush of tangible light into which their horse dashed at such an exhilarating pace, made the heart of Harry bound as lightly as did those of the children by his side. In his warm and kindly good-humour Harry even hesitated to set them down at the very shady gate of Blaelodge, which the sunshine never reached even in midsummer, till its latest hour, and gave five minutes to consider the practicability of carrying them with him to Stirling; but it was not practicable--and Harry only paused to lift them out, and bid them hurry home at night to see the strangers, before proceeding himself on his farther way. The influence of the bright summer day entered into his very heart; he looked to his right hand, where lay the silver coils of the Forth, gleaming over fertile fields and through rich foliage; he looked before him, where his young groom steadily driving on, cut in two the far-off mass of Benledi, and lifted his towering head over the mountain--an unconscious innocent Titan--and Harry’s heart ran over like a child’s, and he scarcely could keep himself still for a second, but whistled and sang, and talked to John, till John thought Allenders the merriest and wittiest gentleman in the country side; and John was not much mistaken. The day passed with the children, as days at school always pass. Violet very quick and very ambitious, resolute not to lose the silver medal inscribed with its glorious “Dux,” which she had worn for a whole week, managed to learn her grammar in some mysterious magical way which the steady Katie Calder could not comprehend; and at last, just as Martha at home began to superintend the toilette which Rose anxiously desired to have plainer than usual to-day, although in spite of her, herself took involuntary pains with it, Katie and Violet gathered up their books, and left Blaelodge. Their road was the highway--a fine one, though not so delightful to Lettie as the narrower bye-lanes about Allenders--but the sun was sufficiently low to leave one side of the path, protected by high hedges and a fine line of elm trees, very shady and cool and pleasant. So they walked along the soft velvet grass, which lined their road, and lingered at the door of the one wayside cottage, and further on gave loving salutation to the cottar’s cow, feeding among the sweet deep herbage, all spangled with wildflowers, and cool with the elm tree’s shadow, which made her milk so rich and fragrant, and herself a household treasure and estate. The little village of Maidlin lay half way between Blaelodge and Allenders, a hamlet of rude labourers’ houses untouched by the hand of improvement, where shrewish hens and sunburnt children swarmed about the doors continually. There had been once a chapel here dedicated to the pensive Magdalen, and an old stone cross still stood in the centre of the village, which--though there now remained no vestige of the