’Oh, Uncle Abel, it is so beautiful to see it, the wide country, and the sky above it so clear and lovely.  Oh, there is room to breathe!’

‘I am sure it looks wintry and bleak enough,’ the old man answered, with a grunt.  ‘I don’t see much beauty in it myself.’

’How strange!  To me it is wholly beautiful.  Is this Ayrshire yet?  Tell me when we come to Ayrshire.’

A slow smile was on the old man’s face as he looked and listened.  He enjoyed her young enthusiasm, but it seemed to awaken in him some sadder thought, for once he sighed heavily, and drew himself together as if he felt cold, or some bitter memory smote him.

In little more than an hour the train drew up at the quiet country station, and Gladys was told they had reached their journey’s end.  It was a lovely spring morning; the sun shone out cheerfully from a mild, bright sky, the air was laden with the awakening odours of spring, and the spirit of life seemed to be everywhere.

‘Now, my girl, we have a great deal to do to-day,’ said the old man, when they had crossed the footbridge.  ’What do you want most to see here?’

‘Mossgiel and Ballochmyle, and the house where you lived in Mauchline.’

’We’ll go to that first; it’s not a great sight, I warn you—­only a whitewashed, thatched cottage in a by-street.  When we’ve seen that, we’ll take a trap and drive to the other places.’

‘But that will cost a great deal,’ said Gladys doubtfully, recalled for the moment to the small economies it was her daily lot to practise.

’Perhaps; but we’ll manage it, I daresay.  It is impossible for us to walk, so there’s no use saying another word.  Give me your arm.’

Gladys was ready in a moment.  Never since the old fen days had she felt so happy, because the green earth was beneath her feet, the trees waving above her, the song of birds in her ears instead of the roar of city streets.  They did not talk as they walked, until they turned into the quaint, wide street of the old-fashioned village; then it was as if the cloak of his reserve fell from Abel Graham, and he became garrulous as a boy over these old landmarks which he had never forgotten.  He led Gladys by way of Poosie Nancie’s tavern, showed her its classic interior, and then, turning into a little narrow lane, pointed out the cottage where he and her father had been boys together.

It was the girl’s turn to be silent.  She was trying to picture the dear father a boy at his mother’s knee, or running in and out that low doorway, or helping to swell the boyish din in the narrow street; and when they turned to go, her eyes were wet with tears.

’I would rather have come here to-day, Uncle Abel, than anywhere else in the whole wide world.  But why did you wish to come?  Did you take a sudden longing to see the old place?’

’No; that was not my object at all.  You will know what it was some day.  Now we’ll go to the inn and get something to eat while they get our machine ready.  See, there’s the old kirk; there’s a lot of famous folk buried in that kirkyard.  We’d better go in, and I’ll show you where I want to be laid.’