o make the world
look dreary to her,--poor woman! Yonder is James Muir, one of our
elders,--a good man, if ever there was one. He knew your father, and
your grandfather too."

Yes, he had known their father well; and the next time he turned down
the path he stopped to speak to them. Not in many words, but kindly and
gravely, as his large, kind heart prompted; and Lilias felt that he was
one that might be relied on in time of need.

"There's your aunt again, with Mrs Graham and the manse bairns," said
Ellen, as they approached. They rose, and went to meet them at the kirk
door; and while their aunt and Mrs Graham waited to speak a few words
to James Muir, they exchanged sly glances with the young people
designated by Ellen as "the manse bairns."

They were the grandchildren of the aged minister. Their father, his
only son,--a minister too,--had, within a year, died in the large town
where he had been settled, and his widow had come with her children to
the manse, which was now their home.

Too shy to speak to the strangers, they cast many a look of sympathy on
the lame boy and his sister who were both fatherless and motherless.
By-and-by the little Jessie ventured to put into Archie's hand a bunch
of brilliant garden-flowers that she had carried. Archie did not speak;
but his smile thanked her, and the flowers bloomed in the cottage-window
for many days.

CHAPTER FOUR.

LIFE AT KIRKLANDS.

But all the days in Kirklands were not sunny days. The pleasant harvest
time went over, and the days grew short and rainy. Not with the
pleasant summer rain, coming in sudden gusts to leave the earth more
fresh and beautiful when the sunshine came again, but with a dull,
continuous drizzle, dimming the window-panes, and hiding in close,
impenetrable mist the outline of the nearest summits. The pleasant
rambles among hills and glens, and the pleasanter restings by the
burn-side, were all at an end now. The swollen waters of the burn hid
the stone seat where the children had loved to sit, and the sere leaves
of the rowan-tree lay scattered in the glen. Even when a blink of
sunshine came, they could not venture out among the dripping heather,
but were fain to content themselves with sitting on the turf seat at the
house-end.

For all Aunt Janet's prophecy had not come true, thus far. There were
no roses blooming on Archie's cheeks yet; and sometimes, when Lilias
watched his pale face, as he sat gazing out into t