sent home to his father a gift of money for the poor of the
parish, and stayed where he was, and did well still, with fair prospects
of some time being a rich man, and then--after more years--God touched
him, not in anger, but in love, though He took from him his only son and
best beloved child. For then he remembered his father who had loved
him, and borne with him, and forgiven him through his troubled youth,
and had sent him away with his blessing at last, and a great longing
came upon him to see his father's face once more. And so he had made
haste to come, fearing all the way lest he might find the manse empty
and his father gone. It was a homecoming both sad and glad, and the
week of rain had been well filled with a history of all things joyful
and sorrowful which had come to them and theirs, in the years that were
gone. And to-day father and son were taking their way over the hills,
so familiar to both, yet so strange to one of them, on a sorrowful
errand.

They kept the high-road for a while, and then turned into a broken path
over the higher ground, the nearest way to the farm of Grassie, where
the "goodman" who had ploughed and sowed and gathered the harvests for
fifty years and more lay dead of a broken heart.

Slowly and carefully they moved over the uneven ground which gradually
ascended and grew less wet as they went on, the son keeping by his
father's side where the roughness of the way permitted, in silence, or
only exchanging a word now and then. The clouds parted as they reached
the hilltop, and they turned to look back on the wide stretch of low
land behind them, which "looked in the sunshine," the minister said,
"like a new-made world." They lingered for a while.

"We need not be in haste. It takes the folk long to gather at such a
time, for they will come from far, and it is weary waiting. But I must
have time for a word with Allison, poor lassie, before they carry her
father away," added he with a sigh.

"But the sun may shine for Allison yet, though this is a dark day for
her and a most sad occasion. Though her father's hearthstone be cold,
let us hope that she may yet see good days in the home of her husband."

But the minister shook his head.

"She must see them there if she is ever to see good days again, but my
fears are stronger than my hopes, Oh! man Alex! I'm wae for bonny Allie
Bain."

"Is her husband such a wretch, then?"

"A wretch? By no means. I hope not. But he