Fay remembered how she used to stroll through the under-wood and gather the slender blue and white harebells that came peeping out of the green moss, or hunted for the waxy blossoms of the bell-heather; how lovely the place had looked then, with the rowans or witchens, as they called them--the mountain ash of the south, drooping over the water, laden heavily with clusters of coral-like berries, sometimes tinging the snowy foam with a faint rose-tint, and fringed in the background with larch and silver birch; the whole mass of luxuriant foliage nearly shutting out the little strip of sky which gleamed pearly blue through a delicate network of leaves. It was an enchanting spot in summer or autumn, but even in winter Fay loved it; its solitude and peacefulness fascinated her. But one day she found its solitude invaded. She had been some months at the Manse, but she had not once spoken to the young minister during his brief visits. She had kept to her room with a nervous shrinking from strangers; but she had watched him sometimes, between the services, pacing up and down the garden as though he were thinking deeply. He was a tall, broad-shouldered young man, with a plain, strong-featured face as rugged as his own mountains; but his keen gray eyes could look soft enough at times, as pretty Lilian Graham knew well; for the willful little beauty had been unable to say no to him as she did her other lovers. It was not easy to bid Fergus Duncan go about his business when he had made up his mind to bide, and as the young minister had decidedly made up his mind that Lilian Graham should be his promised wife, he got his way in that; and Lilian grew so proud and fond of him that she never found out how completely he ruled her, and how seldom she had her own will. Fay heard with some dismay that Mr. Fergus was coming to live at the Manse after Christmas; she would have to see him at meals, and in the evening, and would have no excuse for retiring into her room. Now, if any visitor came to the Manse, Lilian Graham, or one of her sisters--for there were seven strapping lasses at the farm, and not one of them wed yet, as Mrs. Duncan would say--Fay would take refuge in the kitchen, or sit in the minister's room--anything to avoid the curious eyes and questioning that would have awaited her in the parlor; but now if Mr. Fergus lived there, Lilian Graham would be always there too.