They got the key of the churchyard gates, and, stepping across the somewhat untidily kept graves, stood before an uneven mound, surrounded by a very old mossgrown headstone.

‘There’s a name on it, child.  You can’t read it, but it doesn’t matter,’ he said; but Gladys, bending down, brushed the tall grass from the stone, and read the name, John Bourhill Graham of Bourhill, and his spouse, Nancy Millar.

‘Whose names are these, uncle—­your father’s and mother’s?’

‘Oh no; they were not Grahams of Bourhill,’ he answered dryly.  ’That’s generations back.’

‘But the same family?’

’I suppose so—­yes.  I see you would like to explore this place; but we can’t, it’s not the most cheerful occupation, anyhow.  Come on, let us to the inn.’

The lavish manner in which her uncle spent his money that day amazed Gladys, but she made no remark.  Immediately after their hot and abundant dinner at the inn, they drove to the places Burns has immortalised, and which Gladys had so long yearned to see.  Ballochmyle, in lovely spring dress, so far exceeded her expectation that she had no words wherein to express her deep enjoyment.

‘Do not let us hurry away, uncle,’ she pleaded, as they wandered through the wooded glades, ’unless you are very tired.  It is so warm and pleasant, and it cannot be very late.’

’It is not late, half-past two only; but I want you to see Bourhill, where our forbears lived when we had them worth mentioning,’ he said grimly.  ‘Did your father never speak to you about Bourhill?’

’No, never, Uncle Abel.  I am quite sure I never heard the name until I read it to-day in the churchyard.’

’I will tell you why.  He had a dream—­a foolish one it proved—­a dream that he might one day restore the name Graham of Bourhill again.  He hoped to make a fortune by his pictures, but it was a vain delusion.’

A shadow clouded the bright face of Gladys as she listened to these words.

‘This place, Bourhill, is it an estate, or what?’ she asked.

’Not now.  A hundred years ago it had some farms, and was a fair enough patrimony, but it’s all squandered long syne.’

‘How?’

’Oh, drink and gambling, and such-like.  My grandfather, David Graham, kent the taste of Poosie Nancie’s whisky too well to look after his ain, and it slipped through his fingers like a knotless thread.’

He had become even more garrulous, and unearthed from the storehouse of his memory a wealth of reminiscences of those old times, mingled with many bits of personal history, which Gladys listened to with breathless interest.  She had never seen him so awakened, so full of life and vigour; she could only look at him in amazement.  They drove leisurely through the pleasant spring sunshine over the wide, beautiful country, past fields where the wheat was green and strong, and others where sowing was progressing merrily—­sights and sounds dear to Gladys, who had no part nor lot in cities.