ere grew the turf in many a mouldering heap.

It seemed as though the path of death were indeed through flowers.
Garden and churchyard covered the hill's summit; and from both might
be discerned a view such as is rarely seen in level England. It was
a panorama, extending some twenty or thirty miles across the country,
where, through woodlands and meadow-lands, flowed the silver windings
of a small river. Here and there was an old ruined castle--a manor-house
rising among its ancestral trees--or the faint, misty smoke-cloud, that
indicated some hamlet or small town. Save these, the landscape swept
on unbroken, until it ended at the horizon in the high range of the
D--shire hills.

Even to Captain Rothesay, this scene seemed strangely beautiful. He
contemplated it for some time, his hand still on the unopened gate; and
then he became aware that a lady, whose gardening dress and gardening
implements showed she was occupied in her favourite evening employment,
was looking at him with some curiosity.

The traces of life's downward path are easier to recognise than those
of its ascent. Though the mature womanhood of Alison Balfour had glided
into age, Rothesay had no difficulty in discovering that he was in the
presence of his former friend. Not so with her. He advanced, addressed
her by name, and even took her hand, before she had the slightest idea
that her guest was Angus Rothesay.

"Have you, then, so entirely forgotten me--forgotten the days in our
native Perthshire, when I was a bit laddie, and you, our guest, were
Miss Alison Balfour?"

There came a trembling over her features--ay, aged woman as she was!
But at her years, all the past, whether of joy or grief, becomes faint;
else, how would age be borne? She extended both her hands, with a warm
friendliness.

"Welcome, Angus Rothesay! No wonder I did not know you. These thirty
years--is it not thus much?--have changed you from a boy into a
middle-aged man, and made of me an old woman."

She really was an elderly lady now. It seemed almost ridiculous to think
of her as his youth's idol. Neither was she beautiful--how could he ever
have imagined her so? Her irregular features--unnoticed when the white
and red tints of youth adorned them--were now, in age, positively plain.
Her strong-built frame had, in losing elasticity, lost much of grace,
though dignity remained. Looking on Mrs. Gwynne for the first time,
she appeared a large, rather plain woman. Looking again