midday
`` The Free Kirk folk in the depths of their hearts consider me a worldly old clergyman , and perhaps I am , for , Jack , I would dearly like to see our Kate Viscountess Hay , and to think that one day , when we three old fellows are gone , she would be Countess of Kilspindie . '' That was the first conference of the day on Kate 's love affairs , and this is how it ended . Meanwhile the young woman herself had gone up the road to the high Glen and made her way over dykes and through fields to Whinny Knowe , which she had often visited since the August Sacrament . Whinny came out from the kitchen door in corduroy trousers , much stained with soil , and grey shirt -- wiping his mouth with the back of his hand after a hearty dinner -- and went to the barn for his midday sleep before he went again to the sowing . Marget met her at the garden gate , dressed in her week-day clothes and fresh from a morning 's churning , but ever refined and spiritual , as one whose soul is shining through the veil of common circumstances . `` It 's a benison tae see ye on this bricht day , Miss Carnegie , an ' ye 'll come tae the garden-seat , for the spring flooers are bloomin ' bonnie and sweet the noo , an ' fillin ' 's a ' wi ' hope . `` Gin there be ony sun shinin ' , '' as she spread a plaid , `` the heat fa 's here , an ' save when the snow is heavy on the Glen , there 's aye some blossoms here tae mind us o ' oor Father 's love an ' the world that isna seen . ''