a brighter welcome to a bonnier home."

But the earl did not arrive on a gorgeous evening like this, such as
come sometimes to the shores of Loch Beg, and make it glow into a
perfect paradise: he arrived in "saft" weather--in fact, on a pouring
wet Saturday night, and all the clachan saw of him was the outside of
his carriage, driving, with closed blinds, down the hill-side. He had
taken a long round, and had not crossed the ferry; and he was carried as
fast as possible through the dripping wood, reaching, just as darkness
fell, the Castle door.

Mr. Cardross, perhaps, should have been there to welcome the child--
his conscience rather smote him that he was not--but it was the
minister's unbroken habit of years to spend Saturday evening alone in
his study. And it might be that, with a certain timidity, inherent in
his character, he shrank from this first meeting, and wished to put off
as long as possible what must inevitably be awkward, and might be very
painful. So, in darkness and rain, unwelcomed save by his own servants,
most of whom even had never yet seen him, the poor little earl came to
his ancestral door.

But on Sunday morning all things were changed, with one of those sudden
changes which make this part of the country so wonderfully beautiful,
and so fascinating through its endless variety.

A perfect June day, with the loch glittering in the sun, and the hills
beyond it softly outlined with the indistinctness that mountains usually
wear in summer, but with the soft summer coloring too, greenish-blue,
lilac, and silver-gray varying continually. In the woods behind, where
the leaves were already gloriously green, the wood-pigeons were cooing,