But now came Tibbie, the household servant of Crofthill, with the tea; and now a little stir in the passage intimated that the maister, fresh from his hillside fields, was hanging up his broad-brimmed hat in the passage. Miss Janet seated herself at the tray--Menie drew her chair away from the window, and a little nearer to the table, and, heralded by July, who came in again like a quiet shadow, her little pale face appearing in the midst of a stream of soft hair once more blown out of its fastenings by the wind--John Home of Crofthill made his appearance, stooping under his low parlour-door. And perhaps it was these low portals which gave to the lofty figure of the hillside farmer its habitual stoop; but John Home might have been a moss-trooping chieftain for his strength--a baron of romance, for the unconscious dignity and even grace of his bearing. He was older than you would have expected July’s father to be, and had a magnificent mass of white hair, towering into a natural crest of curls over his forehead. The eyes were blue, something cold by natural colour, but warm and kindly in their shining--the face full of shrewd intelligence, humour, and good judgment. He had been nothing all his life but the farmer of Crofthill--and Crofthill was anything but a considerable farm; nevertheless John Home stood in the countryside distinct as his own hill--and not unlike. A genius son does not fall to the lot of every southland farmer, and Randall’s aspirations had elevated, unawares, the whole tone of the family. Randall’s engagement, too, and the magic which made Mrs Laurie of Burnside’s young lady-daughter, and not any farmhouse beauty near, so kindly and intimate a visitor in Crofthill, was not without its additional influence; but the house lost nothing of its perfectly unpretending simplicity in the higher aims to which it unconsciously opened its breast. “And what is this I hear, of going to London?” said John Home, as he took his seat at table. Self-respect hinders familiarity--the good farmer did not like to call his daughter-in-law elect by her own simple Christian name; so half in joke, and half to cover the shy, constitutional hesitation, of which even age had not recovered him, Menie bore in Crofthill, in contrast with the other name of July habitual there, the pretty nickname of May--“Is it true that Burnside is to flit bodily, as July says? I ken ane that will like the change; but I must say that I ken some mair that will not be quite so thankful.” “Ye may say that, John,” said Miss Janet, with a sigh. “I’m sure, for his ain part, Miss Menie, he’ll no think the place is like itsel, and you away; for if ever I saw a man”---- “Whisht,” said Crofthill hurriedly. The good man did not like his partiality spoken of in presence of its object. “But I would like to hear when this terrible flitting is to be.”