sh girlhood Winsome had often ridden the horses when the ploughmen loosed Bell and Jess from the plough. In these days she rode without a side-saddle. Sometimes

r dust over them. Down where the grass was in shadow a mower was sharpening his blade. The clear metallic sound of the "strake" or sharpening strop, covered with pure white Loch Skerrow sand set in grease, which scythemen universally use in Galloway, cut thro

n, which Meg Kissock had marked out in white, with whorls and crosses of immemorial antiquity-the

r and more infinitely removed from him than before. Instinctively he wished himself out with her a

ey sat, one busily reading and often looking up to talk; while the other, the master of the house himself, sat silent, a majestic and altogether

fact he, and not his partner, who spoke first-for Walter Skirving's wife

ve yin o' your family an' name! But what I have is at your service, for it was your nob

ness here. He was on his own ground. This was the very

nt of divinity; "I have often heard my father speak of you. You were the elder from t

square deal table which stood beside him with his great Bible open upon it-"a great

at filled the wide Grannoch Valley, and the bees hummed aga

r band. With a touch of his father's old-fashioned courtesy he stooped and kissed it. Winsome instinctively put her hand quickly behind her as though he had kissed tha

ig Ronald was obvio

to tak' him I dinna ken ony mair than I ken hoo it cam' to pass that I am the mistress o' Walter Skirving's hoose the day.-Come oot ahint my chair, las

ct. The old lady was clad in a dress of some dark stiff material, softer than brocade, which, like herself, was more beautiful in its age than even in youth. Folds of snowy lawn covered her breast and fell softly about her neck, fastened there by a plain black pin. Her face was like a portrait by Henry Raeburn, so beautifully vener

comin' o' my memory? Yer grandfaither was auld Ralph Gilchrist; but ye dinna tak' after the Gilchrists-na, na, there was n

about for inspect

ould say something to offend the guest of the hou

ny lass yestreen?" she queried, sud

the thought that he should think that she had seen him run and gone about telling of it.

xercise," he sa

in, but charmingly provocative. Winsome did not join, but she looked up implorin

Skirving rec

mer days are no lang. Waes me, but I had my share o' them! Tak' them while they shine, bankside an' burnside an' the bonny heather. Aince they bloomed for Ailie Gordon. Once she gaed hand in hand alang the braes, where noo she'll gang

made free of the Big