When she arrived it was with such a glad heart that, at sight of Francis in her father’s Sunday clothes, she laughed so merrily that her mother said ‘The lassie maun be fey!’ Haggard as he looked, the old twinkle awoke in his eye responsive to her joyous amusement; and David, coming in the next moment from putting up the gray mare with which he had met the coach to bring Kirsty home, saw them all three laughing in such an abandonment of mirth as, though unaware of the immediate motive, he could not help joining. The same evening Kirsty went to the castle, and Mrs. Bremner needed no persuasion to find the suit which the young laird had left in his room, and give it to her to carry to its owner; so that, when he woke the next morning, Francis saw the gray garments lying by his bed-side in place of David’s black, and felt the better for the sight. The letters Kirsty had brought, working along with returning health, and the surrounding love and sympathy most potent of all, speedily dispelled his yet lingering delusion. It had occasionally returned in force while Kirsty was away, but now it left him altogether. CHAPTER XXXVII A GREAT GULF It was now midsummer, and Francis Gordon was well, though thin and looking rather delicate. Kirsty and he had walked together to the top of the Horn, and there sat, in the heart of old memories. The sun was clouded above; the boggy basin lay dark below, with its rim of heathery hills not yet in bloom, and its bottom of peaty marsh, green and black, with here and there a shining spot; the growing crops of the far-off farms on the other side but little affected the general impression the view gave of a waste world; yet the wide expanse of heaven and earth lifted the heart of Kirsty with an indescribable sense of presence, purpose, promise. For was it not the country on which, fresh from God, she first opened the eyes of this life, the visible region in which all her efforts had gone forth, in which all the food of her growth had been gathered, in which all her joys had come to her, in which all her loves had had their scope, the place whence by and by she would go away to find her brother with the bonny man! Francis saw without heeding. His heart was not uplifted. His earthly future, a future of his own imagining, drew him. ‘This winna du ony langer, Kirsty!’ he said at length. ‘The accusin angel ’ill be upo’ me again or I ken! I maunna be idle ’cause I’m happy ance mair--thanks to you, Kirsty! Little did I think ever to raise my heid again! But noo I maun be at my wark! I’m fit eneuch!’ ‘I’m richt glaid to hear’t!’ answered Kirsty. ‘I was jist thinkin lang for a word o’ the sort frae ye, Francie. I didna want to be the first to speyk o’ ’t.’ ‘And I was just thinkin lang to hear ye speyk o’ ’t!’ returned Francis. ‘I wantit to du ’t as the thing ye wad hae o’ me!’