The lady was very thin and pale, and had silvery white hair smoothed over the patient, thoughtful forehead, in which time and grief had carved emphatic lines. The face was a face to be noted; serene now, it had not always been serene--but the storm had altogether passed from the evening firmament, and light was upon it pale and calm, like the luminous sky of summer nights when the sun with its warmth of colour and influence has long since gone down into the sea. Her companion seemed about her own age; he had the strong framework of an athletic man, but it was not filled up as a strong man’s form should have been. You saw, as you looked at him, that he was not strong; that sickness, or privation of the healthful, free air which now he seemed to breathe in with so much pleasure, had unstrung and weakened the hardy frame of this old man; but his hair was scarcely gray, and his eye glanced from under his broad, brown, sunburnt forehead with the hopeful, cheery light of youth. The sun had not gone down with him. Over the fair world which he looked forth upon, the rich tints of an autumn sunset were throwing their joy abroad; the warm light and brilliant colouring were in his heart. They looked at each other, the two strangers and the Laird of Mossgray. They were all wondering, all uncertain, all embarrassed, for Adam Graeme had paused before them, and regardless of all formal courtesies they were gazing at each other. “Can you tell me if this is Murrayshaugh?” said the lady, with a faltering unsteady voice. But that would not do. “Man, Adam, have you forgotten me?” cried Hew Murray with tears in his eyes; and the two boys who had grown up together beside that pleasant water of Fendie were grasping each other’s hands again. There needed no other salutation. “Man, Adam!” Through their varied, troubled, far-separated course, the two sworn brothers had carried the generous boyish hearts unchanged--and simple as the lads parted, the old men met. “Man, Adam!” there never were superlative endearing words, which carried a stronger warmth of long and old affection than Hew Murray’s boyish greeting, bursting from the honest, joyous, trembling lip that had not spoken it before for thirty years. “Where have you come from--where have you been? Hew! Hew, what has become of you all this life-time?” exclaimed Adam Graeme. They were holding each other’s hands--looking into each other’s faces--recognizing joyfully the well-remembered youthful features in those subdued ones, over which the mist of age had fallen; but in Hew Murray’s eager grasp, and in the happy, gleaming eyes, whose lashes were so wet, the spirit of the youth was living still. “He will tell you by and by, Adam,” said the lady. “It is a long story--but have you nothing to say to me?” And Lucy Murray held out her hands--the soft, white, gentle hands, whose kind touch Adam Graeme remembered so long ago. “Is it you, Lucy?” said Mossgray. “Are we all real and in the flesh?--is it no dream?”