The day after Wilton's return from D---- Castle, feeling exceedingly restless and unaccountably expectant, he sallied forth with his gun on his shoulder, more as any excuse than with any active sporting intentions. As he passed the gate into the road, a large half-bred mastiff, belonging to Sir Peter Fergusson, rushed up, and Wilton, knowing he was an ill-tempered brute, called his own dogs to heel, but the mastiff did not notice them; he kept snuffing about as though he had lost his master, and then set off in a long, swinging gallop toward Brosedale. Wilton, deep in thought, went on to the brae he so often visited in the commencement of his stay at Glenraven. He had not long quitted the high road, when he perceived a well-known figure, as usual clothed in gray, walking rather slowly before him, and looking wonderfully in accordance with the soft, neutral tints of sky and stones and hill-side--it was one of those still, mild winter days that have in them something of the tenderness and resignation of old age; and which, in our variable climate, sometimes come with a startling change of atmosphere immediately after severe cold. As he hastened to overtake her, Wilton fancied her step was less firm and elastic than usual; that her head drooped slightly as if depressed; yet there was a little more color than was ordinary in her cheek, and certainly an expression of pleasure in her eyes that made his heart beat when she turned at his salutation. She wore a small turban hat of black velvet, with a rosette in front, which looked Spanish, and most becoming to her dark eyes and pale, refined face. "At last, Miss Rivers! I thought you must have abjured this brae since Moncrief and myself became temporary proprietors. I began to fear I should never meet you out of doors again." "I have not been out for a long time alone," she replied; "but to-day some great man from London, a doctor, was to see poor Donald, and I was free for awhile, so I rambled away far up that hill-side. It was delightful--so still, so grave, so soft." "You have been up the hill," cried Wilton, infinitely annoyed to think he had been lounging and writing in the house when he might have had a long walk with his companion. "I wish I had been with you. I imagine it must double one's enjoyment of scenery to look at it with a thorough artist like yourself." Miss Rivers did not reply at once, but, after a moment's pause, asked, "Are you going out now to shoot?" "Well, yes--at least it is my first appearance to-day." "Would it be very inconvenient to you to walk back to Brosedale, or part of the way, with me?" She spoke with a slight, graceful hesitation. "Inconvenient! No, certainly not," returned Wilton, trying to keep his eyes and voice from expressing too plainly the joy her request gave him. "It is a charity to employ me. You know I have lost my chum, Major Moncrief, and I feel somewhat adrift. But I thought young Fergusson was better. Miss Saville said so."