th that follows the bed of the
valley. At that angle there stands a little group of cottages
deliciously cool in their white-wash, nestling together under the heavy
purple crag from which the waters of a ghyll fall into a deep basin that
reaches to their walls. The last of the group is a cottage with its end
to the road, and its open porch facing a garden shaped like a wedge. As
the children passed this house an old man, gray and thin and much bent,
stood by the gate, leaning on a staff. A colly, with the sheep-dog's
wooden bar suspended from its shaggy neck, lay at his feet. The hum of
voices brought a young woman into the porch. She was bareheaded and wore
a light print gown. Her face was pale and marked with lines. She walked
cautiously, stretching one hand before her with an uncertain motion, and
grasping a trailing tendril of honeysuckle that swept downward from the
roof. Her eyes, which were partly inclined upward and partly turned
toward the procession, had a vague light in their bleached pupils. She
was blind. At her side, and tugging at her other hand, was a child of a
year and a half--a chubby, sunny little fellow with ruddy cheeks, blue
eyes, and fair curly hair.

Prattling, laughing, singing snatches, and waving their rushes and ferns
above their happy, thoughtless heads, the children rattled past. When
they were gone the air was empty, as it is when the lark stops in its
song.

The church of Newlands stands in the heart of the valley, half hidden by
a clump of trees. By the lych-gate Parson Christian stood that morning,
aged a little, the snow a thought thicker on his bushy hair, the face
mellower, the liquid eyes full of the sunlight behind which lies the
shower. Greta stood beside him; quieter of manner than in the old days,
a deeper thoughtfulness in her face, her blue eyes more grave and less
restless, her fair hair no longer falling in waves behind her, but
gathered up into a demure knot under her hat.

"Here they come, bless their innocent hearts!" said Parson Christian,
and at that moment the children turned an angle of the road.

The pink and white of their frocks and pinafores were all but hidden by
the little forest of green that they carried before and above them.

"'Till Birnam wood do come to Dunsinane," muttered Greta, smiling.

When the rush-bearers came up to the front of the church, the lych-gate
was thrown open and they filed through.

"How tired he looks, the brave little boy!" sai