Harvest-time in Midlothian. Golden corn in golden stooks dotting the stubble-fields, yellow leaves on the ash and russet nuts on the , a beautiful of multi-coloured landscape stretching away southward and cuddling between the Moorfoots and the Pentlands; bird song in the woods and laughter in the fields, with the of iron wheels and the cheery craik of the levelling . Little wonder Old Sol lingers long this afternoon above Castlelaw. Gladly, I ween, would he stay; but his times of rising and going down are set, and slowly but surely the shadows deepen at the base of Caerketton, and steal upward to its sheltered crown behind Allermuir.  
My wife and I drove round by Roslin to-day, called at The Moat, and after having tea with my old friend Mrs Pendriegh, whose soda-scones are almost as good as Betty's, we returned 'in the of the corn' to Blackford Hall, viâ Woodfield and Fairmilehead.
 
This is all strange, country to Désirée. To-day she saw it for the first time and under the most , and already I know, from her looks and words of , that it has made its appeal. She thinks, with me, that it very much resembles my own homeland scenery, from its undulating fields and bosky woods to its grass-grown hills, so and rounded, she said, that she wanted to clap them. As we drove homeward, quiet thoughts of Thornhill came to us, and we wondered what Betty would be doing, and how she was getting on. For a month she had been with us, our first guest, and the most honoured and most welcome we shall ever have under our roof. Two days ago she returned to what she calls her 'ain hoose,' and when Désirée and I saw her off at the station she told us in a shaky voice that 'mebbe she wad be back in the spring, when she had the hoose seen to an' the gairden .'
 
We miss her cheery, motherly presence in the house; and, though it was looking far ahead, we planned a future for Betty as we drove along.
 
When we reached Blackford Hall I found more ............