m over the hills, and Archie spoke fast and earnestly to have
all told before he came in. "And they all minded on you, aunt, and said
how thankful you would be, and how the Lord was good to you in your old
age. And James Muir said he hoped he was never to go away again; and
Allan Grant said that English Smith was to give up Glen Elder, and why
should it not go back into the old hands again? They all said he would
surely stay in the countryside now."

"And what said my son to that?" asked Mrs Blair tremulously. She had
not ventured to ask him herself yet.

"Oh, he said little. I think it was because his heart was so full.
And, Lily, he put five golden sovereigns into the poor's box! Steenie
Muir told me that he saw his grandfather count it, and he heard him say
that now surely the Lord was to bring back the good days to Glen Elder;
and he thanked God for your sake, aunt. And, Lily, who kens but you may
be `the wee white Lily of Glen Elder' again?"

"A `wee white Lily,' indeed," said her aunt fondly and gravely; but
Lilias laughed, first at the thought of the golden sovereigns and
Nancy's "nine-and-twenty more," destined still to be hidden away in the
china teapot, and then a little at being called the "Lily of Glen
Elder."

"It's like a story in a book, aunt. It would be too much happiness to
have the old days come back again--the happy days at Glen Elder;" and
then her ready tears flowed at the thought that followed--

"They can never--never quite come back again."

CHAPTER NINE.

LIGHT AT EVENTIDE.

"Bonny Glen Elder!" repeated Archie to himself many times, as, holding
his cousin's hand, he walked over the fair sloping fields and through
the sunny gardens. His cousin repeated it, too, sometimes aloud,
sometimes sighing the words in regretful silence, remembering all that
had come and gone since the happy days when he, a "guileless laddie,"
had called the place his home.

The farm had been rented by the Elder family for three generations.
Archie's father had never held it. It had been in the hands of Hugh's
father during his short lifetime; but Archie's father and grandfather
had been born there, and his great-grandfather had spent the greater
part of his life on the place; and it quite suited Archie's ideas of the
fitness of things that it should again be held by his cousin, who,
though he did not bear the name, was yet of the blood of these men,
whose memory was still honoured in the countrysi