One Sabbath morning, in the kirk, Lilias was startled by the sight of
familiar faces in the minister's seat, faces associated in her mind with
a bright parlour, and kind words spoken to her there. The quick smile
and whisper exchanged by the two lads told her that the Gordon boys had
recognised her too.

"That's my father's `bonny Lily,'" said Robert Gordon to young John
Graham, who was looking gravely at the boys carrying on a whispered
conference notwithstanding the reading of the psalm.

And, when the sermon was over, and Lilias, with her aunt and her
brother, stood in the kirk-yard, the boys pressed eagerly forward to
shake hands with her, and express their joy at seeing her again.

"They are Dr Gordon's sons, aunt," said Lilias, in answer to Mrs
Blair's look of surprise. "I saw them that night." And the vivid
remembrance of "that night" made her cheek grow pale.

"I hardly knew you,--you have grown so bonny," said Robert, gravely.
Lilias laughed.

"Come into the manse, and you will see your young friends without
interruption," said kind Mrs Graham. "Come, Archie."

And so they passed a pleasant hour in the manse garden. The Gordons had
come to pass their summer holidays with their cousins; and they would
often come over the hills to see her, they said. They had a very
pleasant time sitting on the grass in the shadow of the fir-trees. Even
young John Graham, as he paced up and down the walk with a book in his
hand, condescended to show a little curiosity as to the subject of their
conversation, so earnest did their tones become at last; and John Graham
was a college student, and a miracle of wisdom in his sister's eyes. He
wondered if it was all "Sabbath talk" that engrossed them so much; and
his wonder changed to serious doubts, as his little sister Jessie's
voice rose above the voices of all the rest.

But wise John was mistaken this time. The subject that engrossed them
so much was at the same moment engrossing good James Muir and his
brother elders on the other side of the kirk-yard wall. It was the
sermon and the minister they were discussing.

Jessie was eloquent on the subject. Of course there never was such a
preacher as her grandfather,--not even the great Dr Chalmers himself,
the child declared; and all the rest agreed. Even Robert Gordon, whose
taste, if the truth must be told, did not lie at all in the direction of
sermons, declared that he had not been very weary that day in the k