The joyous autumn began to wane, and Harry’s thrashing-mill began to work, throwing out its banner of blue smoke above the trees. But Harry’s hopes came to no harvest--the long-neglected land still bore scantily--the slender crops did not pay, nor nearly pay for their culture. Not even William Hunter’s rent came in now to give the embarrassed laird an income, and his second half-yearly payment of interest was due at Martinmas, with only enough remaining to pay it of his last thousand pounds; and no provision made for the whole long year which must intervene between this and another harvest--nothing to continue the cultivation which should make another harvest profitable--nothing to maintain the expensive household, which now in Allenders waited for its fate; and Harry looked before him, and around, and muttered curses on his own folly, and saw no way of deliverance. He could not spring out of his ruin, he could do nothing to make himself free; but he could forget and drown it, and he did so. No kindly neighbours now entered the house of Allenders. Good Lady Dunlop took stolen opportunities of alighting from her carriage on the road, when her daughter was not with her, to comfort the poor little wife, over whom her motherly heart yearned; and the ladies of Nettlehaugh and Foggo Barns, made their salutations at church, and eased their consciences. Agnes herself began to grow nervous, to start at sudden sounds, and be shaken by passing voices. Her hand trembled more than Harry’s did, sometimes, and when he put away from him with loathing the simple, wholesome food he could no longer take, Agnes grew so sick that she could not keep her seat. Her baby did not thrive--he scarcely could in a house where the one great absorbing interest engaged every thought; no one sang to him now, except Mysie--scarcely any one had the heart to play with him--and the poor infant “--caught the trick of grief, And sighed among its playthings.” Rose, with no resource of dreaming left to her, tried to dull her heart with constant labour, and wandered out in the early morning, while the dew was still on the grass, to sit by the Lady’s Well, where Lettie, wistful and anxious, found her out often, and sat at her feet in silence, touching her softly with little caressing hands, and wondering with pensive thoughts over the mystery which made Rose “like to break her heart;” for Lettie knew that other griefs than the family fear for Harry, bore down upon the gentle spirit of her sister Rose.