The autumn days flushed to their brightest and began to wane. It was a gay autumn to the Fendies, and to the other youthful people of the neighbourhood through them; Halbert Graeme had quite forgiven Menie Monikie. The saucy Menie sent him cards and gloves when she became Mrs Keith, and a barbarous lump of bride-cake; but the gift, cruel as it was, did by no means disturb the equanimity of Halbert. The broken gold coin lay snug in a corner of his dressing-case; he laughed merrily to himself sometimes when his eye fell upon it, and thought with a great deal of good-humour, and scarcely any pique, how simple and foolish the boy and girl were who broke that coin in the pleasant twilight of the Aberdeenshire glen. Halbert had got over his first romance very comfortably; the youthful epidemic fell lightly on the heir of Mossgray. He was much “out.” Alick Fendie and the redoubtable Captain Hyde engrossed a great deal of Halbert’s time, and his hands were full of flirtations now when he had no restraint upon him. But Halbert was not like his father; the flirtations were honest, unsophisticated amusements, and did little harm. He was born to be popular with all, but he killed nobody. And left thus to themselves in the quiet house of Mossgray, it was a pleasant time to Lilias and her guardian. She had learned to prize the sunshine more from its temporary withdrawal, and the old man spoke to her of the wanderer far away as of an absent son. “When he comes home.” Lilias remembered how that word rung in her own ear when she first saw Mossgray; she remembered how, after the lifetime of wandering, the blessedness of those who dwell among their own people fell upon her; and _he_ too was to come “home.” Another letter came from him in those clear September days; it was brief, like the other. He had much to tell her, he said, but was still feeble, and must defer it until he spoke to her, face to face; and in another month he would reach Mossgray. The news brought a strange thrill over the calm Lily. It was years now since he went to India. Their engagement had been formed when they were both very young, and she was now matured into grave womanhood. She began to fancy that she was changed; she began to wonder whether he too had grown old as she had done; and while she smiled at herself for these fancies, they sometimes agitated her a little--a very little--only just enough to keep the balance even, and prevent an overpoise of joy.