Lettie, now a tall girl of fifteen, stood by Dragon’s stair, arranging flowers, a great number of which lay before her on one of the steps. They were all wild flowers, of faint soft colour and sweet odours, and Lettie was blending hawthorn and primroses, violets and cowslips, with green sprigs of the sweetbriar, and here and there an early half-opened wild rose--blending them with the greatest care and devotion; while Katie Calder, developed into a stout little comely woman-like figure, stood by, looking on with half contempt; for Katie already had made a superb bouquet of garden flowers, and was carrying it reverentially in her apron. “It’s five years this day since Mr. Hairy came first to Allenders”, continued the old man, “and it’s mair than three since they laid him in his grave. The like o’ him--a young lad! and just to look at the like o’ me!” “But it was God’s pleasure, Dragon,” said Lettie, pausing in her occupation, while the shadow which stole over her face bore witness that Harry’s memory had not passed away even from her girl’s heart. “Ay, Missie,” said the old man vacantly; “do ye think the spirit gaed willingly away? I’ve thought upon that mony a time when I was able to daunder up bye to the road, and see the farm; and it’s my belief that Mr. Hairy will never get right rest till a’s done of the guid he wanted to do, and a’s undone o’ the ill he did--that’s my belief. I think myself he canna get lying quiet in his grave for minding of the work he left to do; and if there was ane here skilled to discern spirits, he might be kent in the fields. What makes the lady sae constant at it, think ye, night and morning, putting to her ain hand to make the issue speedier, if it’s no that she kens about him that’s aye waiting, waiting, and never can enter into his rest.” Lettie let her flowers fall, and looked away with a mysterious glance into the dark shade of the trees; for the vague awe of poetic superstition was strong upon Lettie still. “Dragon,” she said in a very low voice, “I used to think I heard Harry speak, crying on me, and his footstep in his own room, and on the stair; and all the rest thought that too, for I have seen them start and listen many a time, thinking it was Harry. Do ye think it could be true? Do ye think, Dragon, it could be Harry? for I came to think it was just because he was aye in our mind that we fancied every sound was him.”