News of battle!—news of battle! Hark, ’tis ringing down the street! And the archways and the pavement Bear the clang of hurrying feet. News of battle!—who hath brought it? News of triumph! Who should bring Tidings from our noble army? Greetings from our gallant king? LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAVALIERS. While these events were occurring by the shore of the Euxine, brown autumn was spreading her sober tints upon the Scottish woods; and one seldom sees the country more attractive than when its beauty is decaying, and a soothing sadness mingles with our delight. The long grass is dank in the shady places, for there the dew falls early at eve, and lingers long after sunrise; and now in Calderwood Glen the dark leaves of the chestnuts were varied by the golden yellow of the lime tree, whose frail leaves are among the earliest to whirl before the gusty autumn wind. Already the first leaves—the early spoil of the season—were lying in the long, shady avenue, or were gathered in heaps, even as the breeze had swept them, about the well of James V., the yew hedgerows, and the grass walks of the antique Scottish garden, where tradition avers that Anne of Denmark flirted with the bonnie Earl of Gowrie. There the asters and dahlias still contended for a place with the old-fashioned hollyhock. Summer had gone; but the corn-marigold and the gorgeous crimson poppy yet lingered among the yellow stubble, or on the green burn braes; scarlet hips and haws made gay the hedgerows, and the ladybirds were pecking at the sweet apples in the orchard. The shadows of the flying clouds passed over the green mountain slopes, over Largo’s lofty cone, the round swelling Lomonds—the Mamelles of Fife, as a French officer not inaptly termed them—the breeze of the German Sea came up the long, fertile Howe, and brought softly to the ear the lowing of cattle from Falkland Woods and many a cosy homestead. The autumn was lovely in Calderwood Glen; but the old manor house seemed empty and silent, and the heart of Cora was sad, for— Great events were on the gale, And each hour brought a varying tale, and she knew that the same autumnal sun which was browning the woods of Scotland was lighting her kilted regiments on their path of death and peril by the Alma. There were times when Cora thought that, bitter though it was, this hopeless sorrow for the absence of one she loved, how sweet it might have been—how sadly sweet—had Newton loved her in return. Ah! it had not been hopeless then; but Newton loved another, who loved him too. Yet, did that other love him so well as she, poor quiet Cora, did? And would she love him always? Then, when she heard the thistlefinch, with its golden wings, singing among the linden trees, the words of the old, old song seemed to come home truly to her heart as she hummed them over.