"By the green bye-ways forgotten, to a stiller circle of time,
Where violets faded for ever, seemed blooming as once in their prime,"
till her bonnie wee leddy's voice seemed again to ring out clear and silvery, and she could hear Kirsty's low, earnest tones, as she spoke of the Master she loved so well.
[XI.]
THE LOCH.
COLD north wind that smelled of winter had been sweeping through the glen for several days, making the great fir-forests creak and swing, and the ash and birk-trees down in the hollow shiver and drop their leaves at each gust. The nights had begun to draw in visibly, and the mornings felt chilly, and looked sad and grey. Everything seemed to proclaim that the pleasant autumn days at Glen Eagle were nearly done. The purple bloom had quite faded from the heather, and the hills began to look stern and bleak in the cheerless afternoon.
"Red o'er the forest peers the setting sun,
The line of yellow light dies fast away
That crown'd the eastern copse; and chill and dun
Falls on the moor the brief October day."
To two young hearts that wintry wind and its accompaniments sounded dirge-like and sad, for it told of happy days that had passed all too soon. Blanche sighed as she remembered the dull London school-room, and the measured promenade in Kensington Park; and Morag's lip grew tremulous as she trotted by Shag's side along the familiar roads, and sighed to think how desolate they would seem without his little mistress.
The shooting party at the old castle had already begun to break up; and the day for general dispersion to warmer latitudes was fixed, when, one afternoon, Blanche and Morag stood together in the old court-yard, trying to decide what would be the very pleasantest way of spending it. They had promised to spend the last afternoon with Kirsty; and now the last but one had come, and the hours seemed so very precious that they feared to "squander one wavelet" of them.