It seemed as if he had come to the same decision when he arrived on the night which was then called in Scotland, and is perhaps still to some extent, Hogmanay--why I do not know, nor I believe does any one--the last night of the year. He came in the early twilight, when the short, dark day was ending, and the long, cheerful evening about to begin. What a cheerful evening it was! the fire so bright, the candles twinkling, the curtains drawn, and from the kitchen the sound of the children singing who had come out in a band all the way from the village to call upon Katrin: “Get up, gudewife, and shake your feathers, And dinna think that we are beggars, For we are bairns, come out to play; Get up and gie’s our Hogmanay.” Lily was about to go down, flying down the spiral stairs, her heart beating loud with expectation, wondering breathlessly when he would come, how he would come, who alone could bring the Hogmanay cheer to her, and in the meantime ready, for pure excitement, and to keep herself still, to join the women in the kitchen, and fill the children’s wallets with cakes, cakes _par excellence_, the oatmeal cakes to wit, which are still what is meant in Scotland by that word, baked thin and crisp, and fresh from the girdle, making a pleasant smell; and over and above these with shortbread, in fine, brown farls, the true New Year’s dainty, and great pieces of bun, the Scotch bun, which is something between a plum-pudding and the Pan Giallo of the Romans, a mass of fruit held together by flour and water. Great provision of these delights was in the kitchen, which was all “redd up” and shining for the festival, with Katrin in her best cap, and Beenie in a silk gown and muslin apron, a resplendent figure. A band of “guisards” had accompanied the children, ready to enact some scene of the primitive drama of prehistoric tradition. Lily was hastening down to join this party, in a white dress which she too had put on in honor of the occasion. The kitchen was very noisy, full of these visitors, and nobody but she heard the summons at the big hall-door. Lily hesitated for a moment, her heart giving a bound as loud as the knock--then opened it. And there he stood--the hero and the centre of all! “And, eh, what a lucky thing to come this night that Miss Lily may have her ploy too! You will just stop and eat your bit dinner with her, Maister Lumsden!” Katrin cried. “Will it be a ploy for Miss Lily? I would like to be sure of that.” “Eh, nae need to pit it in words,” said Katrin: “look at her bonnie e’en; and reason good, seeing that she has never spoken to one of her own kind, and least of all to a young gentleman, since the day ye gaed away.” “I am staying at Tam the shepherd’s, on the other side of the moor,” said Ronald. “Losh me! at Tam the shepherd’s, for the shootin’?” she asked in a tone of consternation. “Well,” he said, with a laugh, “you can judge, Katrin, for yourself.”