whispered, snuggling her head close to his side, "when we are grown old
and our--our--children gone from us, maybe if you would be wearying for
this place, we could be coming back and lying down yonder," said she,
pointing to the old kirk, "among our folk."

"There would maybe be some of the boys here coming with us,--Angus
McKinnon and Guy Hamilton and Pate Currie," says Bryde, "and we could
be talking of this place and remembering it when it would be New Year,
and telling the old stories again."

"Do you know who I think will be coming?" cried Margaret. "I am
thinking Hamish will be coming too."

When they rose to leave the place--and they were loath to leave--the
face of Margaret was changed; there was a glamour of joy over her, and
her eyes were not seeing very well, but rather looking away into that
happy future, and she clung to Bryde.

"Will I be too happy?" she whispered fearfully, and made the sign that
wards off the spirit of evil. "Bryde, we will not be telling this for
a wee while,--I am to be holding my happiness in my hands, holding it
to my heart, and nobody knowing."

* * * * * *

It will whiles make me smile to think of the coming of Bryde and
Margaret to the Big House that day, for with all her cleverness the
eyes of Margaret could not be leaving her man, and her mouth would
tremble into a smile, and her cheeks glow at a word; but Bryde that day
was all-conquering.

To my aunt--the Leddy, as they will be naming her--to her he was all
courtesy, all deference, yet he would be surprising her into quick
laughing--indeed, I will always be remembering her words.

"My dear," said she, and her voice trembling, "I am glad to welcome
you--I am glad to be proud of you, for I will have loved you like my
own son," and she kissed him very heartily and wept a little, and the
Laird, my uncle, broke out--

"Hoots, what is it for--this greetin'; the lad kens he's welcome.
King's ship or no', and we will be having a bottle of the wine of
Oporto," says he, and came back with it himself, handling the dusty
age-crusted bottle with great skill, and we drank Bryde McBride his
health. "'To the day when you will be slaying a deer,'" said the
Laird, "'and to the day when you will not be slaying a deer,' and I'm
thinking, Bryde, to-day you will have had a very good hunting."

And at that we drained our glasses, and Mistress Margaret and the
mother of her would be looking with new eye