Haystoun. "He has the real distinction, dear," she
cried, "which you can never mistake. It only belongs to old blood and
it is quite inimitable. His friends are so charming, too, and you can
always tell a man by his people. It is so pleasant to fall in with old
acquaintances again. That dear Lady Clanroyden promised to come over
soon. I quite long to see her, for I feel as if I had known her for
ages."
After lunch Alice fled the house and sought her old refuge--the hills.
There she would find the deep solitude for thought. She was not
broken-hearted, though she grieved now and again with a blind longing of
regret. But she was confused and shaken; the landmarks of her vision
seemed to have been removed, and she had to face the grim narrowing-down
of hopes which is the sternest trial for poor mortality.
Autumn's hand was lying heavy on the hillsides. Bracken was yellowing,
heather passing from bloom, and the clumps of wild-wood taking the soft
russet and purple of decline. Faint odours of wood smoke seemed to flit
over the moor, and the sharp lines of the hill fastnesses were drawn as
with a graving-tool against the sky. She resolved to go to the Midburn
and climb up the cleft, for the place was still a centre of memory. So
she kept for a mile to the Etterick road, till she came in view of the
little stone bridge where the highway spans the moorland waters.
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