at Long Lauchie's, were driving homeward.

The first snow had fallen a few days before and had been succeeded by
rain, which, freezing as it fell, formed a hard, glassy "crust" on the
top of the snow. This glimmering surface reflected the radiant evening
skies like a polished mirror. The surrounding fields were a sea of
glass mingled with fire, and the whole earth had become an exact copy
of heaven. Away ahead stretched the road like two polished, golden
bars that gradually melted into the violet and mauve tints of the dusky
pines. Through the frequent openings in the purple forest they could
see, far over hill and valley, a marvellous vista, all enveloped in the
wondrous glow, the patches of woodland looking like fairy islands
floating in a sea of gold. Overhead, the delicately green heavens
shone through the marvellous tracery of the bare branches. The horse's
bells echoed far into the woods, the only sound in the winter
stillness, for the whole world seemed silent and wondering before the
beauty of the dying day.

The two travellers had not spoken for some time; the minister was lost
in contemplation of the glorious night, and the minister's wife, alas,
was absorbed in a subject that had been worrying her for more than a
month, the subject of Miss Isabel Herbert.

Before her visit at the manse had terminated, Mrs. Cameron had come to
consider her invitation to that young lady as the great mistake of her
hitherto well-ordered life. For no sooner had the guest been settled
than that young MacDonald, who was such a friend of Mr. Monteith, began
to appear with alarming frequency. Now, though there might have been
no harm in Captain Herbert's niece playing in the backwoods with Big
Malcolm's grandson when they were children, Mrs. Cameron mentally
declared that, now they were grown up, such a thing as intimacy between
them was absolutely out of the question. Miss Herbert, she well knew,
would be horrified at the thought, and she set herself sternly to
discourage the young man's attentions.

But she found this no easy task. One of her greatest obstacles was the
minister himself. The good man had long yearned to bring Monteith and
his friend into the church and now hailed Scotty's visits as special
opportunities sent him by Providence. To his wife's dismay he warmly
welcomed the young man, pressed him to come again speedily, and was, in
his innocent goodness of heart, as much a trial to his wife as Isabel
he