The tempest had not yet reached Skye; and they could see, in the intervals of rolling clouds, mountain peaks glittering with snow.

"There is the snow!" said the widow. "And see the vapours!—the tumbling, rolling vapours that we call steam-clouds! Look how the lightning flash darts out of them! and how the sea seems swelling and boiling up to meet the vapours! A little way from the land, the wind catches the spray and carries it up and away. If the wind was now from the east, as it will be in spring, that spray would wash over us, and drench us to the skin in a minute."

"What, up here?"

"Oh, yes, and higher still. There! Adam felt some then." And well he might. The sea was now wrought into such tumult that its waves rolled in upon the rocks with tremendous force, causing the caverns to resound with the thundering shock, and the very summit of the precipices to vibrate. Every projection sent up columns of spray, the sprinklings of which reached the heights, bedewing the window of the cottage, and sending in the party under the gable.

"There now," said the widow, when she had fed her fire, and sat down, "we have seen a fine sight to-day; and there will be more to-morrow."

"Shall we see it to-morrow?"

"Oh, yes; if you like to come to me to-morrow, I think I can promise to show you the shore all black with weed thrown up by the storm, and, perhaps we may get some wood. These storms often cast up wood, sometimes even thick logs. We must not touch the logs; they belong to Sir Alexander Macdonald, but we may take the smaller pieces, those of us who can get down before other people have taken them away. If the minister is not aware of this, we must tell him, and the weeds will be good to manure his kail-bed, if he can find nothing better."

"Will you go to-morrow and pick up some wood?"

"If I can get down alone; but I cannot climb up and down as I used to do. I will show you something prettier than wood or weed that I picked up, after one of these storms, when I was younger." And she took out of her chest three shells, one very large and handsome, which had been cast upon the western shore some years before. Adam thought this so beautiful that he begged to have it; but the widow could not give it away. She told him she must keep it for a particular reason; but he could see it whenever lie liked to come to her for the purpose.

But Adam thought he might pick up such an one himself, if he could go to-morrow to the western shore; and his friend could not say that this was impossible. Oh! then, would she not go and show him the way? Would she not try if he and Kate helped her with all their strength? They were very strong. If she would stand up they would show her how strong they were. She stood up, and they tried to carry her. Their faces were exceedingly red, and they were very near lifting up their friend, and she was laughing and wondering whether they could carry her down the rocks in that way, when the door burst open and Lady Carse appeared.

"The children must come home," said she to Annie; "they have no business here."

"I called them in, my lady, when the thunder frightened them."

"They should not have come. They should have told you that they were under their parents' displeasure."

All now looked grave enough. The children stole away home, skilfully avoiding taking hold of the lady's offered hands. She pulled the door after her in no gentle manner. She did not much care whether the children were fond of her; but it was somehow disagreeable to her that they should be happy with her next-door neighbour.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE STEWARD ON HIS ROUNDS.

The return of Macdonald's boat was a great event; and especially to the inhabitants of the hill-side cottages. Macdonald was accompanied by Sir Alexander's steward, who brought some furniture and finishings for the chapel and the minister's dwelling, and, for the first time, a parcel for Lady Carse.

When the package was brought up from the shore, Lady Carse rushed in to tell Annie the news, and to bid her come and see the unpacking.

The poor lady was sure that by means of Mr Johny, or through some other channel, tidings of her existence and banishment had reached her friends at Edinburgh, and that this parcel contained some warrant of release. With raised colour and sparkling eyes, she talked of her departure the next morning; of how it would be best to travel, when she once set foot on the main; of how soon she could reach Edinburgh, and whether it would not be better to go first to London, to lay her own case and the treason of her enemies before the Prime Minister. Mrs Ruthven agreed to all she said. Mr Ruthven walked to and fro before the door, stopping at every turn to offer his congratulations. Annie looked anxious and eager.

When the package was deposited before the door, and the glee of the party was at the highest, the children capered and shouted. Annie quietly checked this, and kept them by her side; whereupon Lady Carse smiled at Mrs Ruthven, and said she pitied people who were grave when good fortune befell their friends, and who could not bear even to let children sympathise in it.

"You mistake me, madam," said Annie. "If this package was from Edinburgh, I should feel more like dancing myself than stopping the children's dancing; but I sadly fear this comes from no further off than Skye. I know the Skye packages."

"Nonsense!" cried Lady Carse. "I know nobody in Skye. I hate croakers. Some people take a pleasure in spoiling other people's pleasure."

"That is a temper that I do not approve of," observed Mr Ruthven. "This life is to some such a vale of tears that I think it is ungrateful not to pluck the few flowers of innocent pleasure which grow by the wayside. I should think that a Christian temper would be ready to assist the enjoyment. Here, my good men—"

"What stupid fellows those men are!" cried Lady Carse. "They are actually going away without helping us to uncord the package."

She called after them; but in answer to her scolding, the men only stared; which made Lady Carse tell them they were idiots. A word or two from Annie in Gaelic brought them back directly, and obtained from them what aid was needed.

"Shall I enquire, madam," asked Annie, "anything that you may wish to know?"

"No," replied Lady Carse, sharply. "You speak Gaelic, I think," she said to Mr Ruthven. "Will you learn from the men all you can about this package, and tell me every word they say?"

Mr Ruthven bowed, cleared his throat, and began to examine the men. Lady Carse meantime said to Mrs Ruthven, in Annie's hearing, that she must wait, and restrain her patience a little while. There was no saying what might be in the package, and they must be by themselves when they opened it.

Mrs Ruthven said she would send the children away; and Annie offered to take them home with her.

"The children!" exclaimed Lady Carse. "Oh, bless them! what harm can they do? Let them stay by all means. I hope there will be nobody to spoil their pleasure."

Annie curtseyed, and withdrew to her own house. As she shut the door and sank into a chair, she thought how bad her rheumatic pains were. Her heart was swelling a little too; but it soon subsided as she said to herself, "A vale of tears, indeed, is this life; or rather a waste and howling wilderness, to that poor lady with her restless mind. God knows I would not reckon hardly with her, or anyone so far from peace of mind. Nor can I wonder, when I pity her so much, that others should also, and forget other things when she is before their eyes. I did think, when I heard the minister was coming—But I had no right to expect anything beyond the blessing of the sabbath, and of burial, and the ordinances. And oh, there is the comfort of the sabbath! The Word is preached, and there is prayer and praise now on sabbath-days for a year to come; or, perhaps, as many years as I shall live. If this was a place for peace of mind before, what can trouble us now?" The closing psalm of last sabbath had never been out of her ears and her heart since. She now began to sing it, softly at first, but louder as her soul warmed to it. She was soon stopped by a louder sound; a shrill cry from the next house, and presently Mrs Ruthven rushed in to know what she was to do. Lady Carse was hysterical. The package had contained no news from her friends, but had brought cruel disappointment. It contained some clothing, a stone of sugar, a pound of tea, six pecks of wheat, and an anker of spirits; and there was a slip of paper to say that the same quantity of these stores would be brought yearly by the steward when he came to collect the heather rent. At this sentence of an abode of years in this place, Lady Carse had given way to despair; had vowed she would choke the steward in his sacks of feathers, that she might be tried for murder on the main; and then she had attempted to scatter the wheat, and to empty out the spirits, but that Mr Ruthven had held her hand, and told her that the anker of spirits was, in fact, her purse—her means of purchasing from Macdonald and others her daily meat and such service as she needed. But now she was in hysterics, and they did not know what to do next. Would Mrs Fleming come?

Annie thought the lady would rather not see her; told Mrs Ruthven how to treat the patient, and begged that the children might be sent to her, if they were in the way.

The children were with Annie all the rest of the day; for their father and mother were exceedingly busy writing letters, to go by the steward.

In the evening the steward paid them a visit, in his round back to the boat. He was very civil, brought with him a girl, the handiest and comeliest he said, that he could engage among Macdonald's people, to wait upon Lady Carse; gave order for the immediate erection of a sort of outhouse for her stores, and desired her to say if there was anything else she was pressingly in want of. She would not say a word to him of one kind or another, but turned him over to the minister. But the minister could not carry his own points. He could not induce the steward to convey a single letter of the several written that day. The steward was sorry: had hoped it was understood that no letter was to leave the island,—no written paper of any kind,—while Lady Carse resided there. He would not take these to Sir Alexander: he would not ask him to yield this point even to the minister. Sir Alexander's orders were positive; and it was clear that in these parts that settled the question.

While the argument was going on, Lady Carse rose from her seat, and passed behind the steward, to leave the room. She caught up the letters unperceived, and unperceived slipped them into the steward's pocket: so that while he bowed himself out, declining to touch the letters, he was actually carrying them with him.

Helsa, Lady Carse's new maid, witnessed this prank; and, not daring to laugh at the moment, made up for this by telling the story to her acquaintance, the widow, when sent for the children at night.

"That will never do," Annie declared. "Harm may come of it, but no good."

And this set her thinking.

The consequence of her meditation was that she roused the family from their beds when even Lady Carse had been an hour asleep. When Mr Ruthven found that there was neither fire nor illness in the case, he declared to Annie his disapprobation of untimely hours; and said that if those who had a lamp to keep burning became in time forgetful of the difference between night and day, they should remember that it was not so with others; and that the afflicted especially, who had griefs and agitations during the day, should be permitted to enjoy undisturbed such rest as might be mercifully sent them.

Annie listened respectfully to all this, and acknowledged the truth of it. It was, however, a hope that Lady Carse might possibly sleep hereafter under the same roof with her children, if this night were not lost, which made her take the liberty of rousing the minister at such an hour.

She was confident that the steward would either bring back the letters, as soon as he put his hand upon them, or destroy them; for such a thing was never heard of as an order of Sir Alexander's being disobeyed. She had thought of a way of sending a note, if the minister could write on a small piece of paper what would alarm the lady's friends. She had now and then, at long intervals, a supply from a relation from Dumfries, of a particular kind of thread which she used to knit into little socks and mittens for sale. This knitting was now too fine for her eyes: but the steward did not know this; and he would no doubt take her order, as he had done before. She believed he would come up to return the letters quite early in the morning. If she had a ball of thread ready, he would take it as a pattern: and this ball might contain a little note;—a very small one indeed, if the minister would write it.

"How would the receiver know there was a note?" asked Mr Ruthven.

"It might be years before the ball was used up," Mrs Ruthven observed: "or it might come back as it went."

"I thought," said Annie, "that I would give the order in this way. I would say that I want four pieces of the thread, all exactly the same length as the one that goes. The steward will set that down in his book; and he always does what we ask him very carefully. Then my relation will unwind the ball to see what the length is, and come upon the note; and then—"

"I see. I see it all," declared Mr Ruthven. "Do not you, my dear?"

"Oh yes; I see. It will be delightful, will it not, Lady Carse?"

"That is as it may be," said Lady Carse. "It is a plan which may work two ways."

"I do not see how it can work to any mischief," Annie quietly declared. "I will leave you to consider it. If you think well of the plan, I shall be found ready with my thread. If the steward returns, it will be very early, that he may not lose the tide."

As might be expected, Annie's offer was accepted; for even Lady Carse's prejudiced mind could point out no risk, while the success might be everything. There was something that touched her feelings in the patient care with which the widow sat, in the lamplight, winding the thread over and over the small slip of paper, so as to leave no speck visible, and to make a tight and secure ball.

The slip of paper contained a request that the reader would let Mr Hope, advocate, Edinburgh, know that Lady Carse was not dead, though pretended to be buried, but stolen away from Edinburgh, and now confined to the after-mentioned island of the Hebrides. Then followed Lady Carse's signature and that of the minister, with the date.

"It will do! It will do!" exclaimed Mrs Ruthven. "My dear, dear Lady Carse—"

But Lady Carse turned away, and paced the room, "I don't wonder, I am sure," declared Mrs Ruthven, "I don't wonder that you walk up and down. To think what may hang on this night—Now, take my arm,—let me support you."

And she put her arm around the waist of her dear friend. But Lady Carse shook her off, turned weeping to Annie, and sobbed out, "If you save me—If this is all sincere in you, and—"

"Sincere!" exclaimed Annie, in such surprise that she almost dropped the ball.

"O yes, yes; it is all right, and you are an angel to me. I—"

"What an amiable creature she is!" said Mrs Ruthven to her husband, gazing on Lady Carse. "What noble impulses she has!"

"Very fine impulses," declared the minister. "It is very affecting. I find myself much moved." And he began pacing up and down.

"Sincere!" Annie repeated to herself in the same surprise.

"Oh, dear!" observed Mrs Ruthven, in a whisper, which, however, the widow heard: "how long it takes for some people to know some other people. There is Mrs Fleming, now, all perplexed about the dear creature. Why, she knew her; I mean, she had her with her before we ever saw her, and now we know her—Oh! how well, how thoroughly we know her—we know her to the bottom of her heart."

"A most transparent being, indeed!" declared Mr Ruthven. "As guileless as a child."

"Call me a child; you may," sobbed Lady Carse. "None but children and such as I quarrel with their best friends. She has been to me—"

"You reproach yourself too severely, my dear lady," declared the minister. "There are seasons of inequality in us all; not that I intend to justify—"

His wife did not wait for the end, but said, "Quarrel, my dear soul? Quarrel with your best friends? You do such a thing! Let us see whether you ever quarrel with us; and we are friends, are we not; you and we? Let us see whether you ever quarrel with us! Ah!"

Annie had finished her work; and she was gone before the long kiss of the new friends was over.

"It is only two days more to the sabbath," thought she. Then she smiled, and said, "Anyone might call me a child, counting the days as if I could not wait for my treat. But, really, I did not know what the comfort of the sabbath would be. The chapel is all weather-tight now; and thank God for sending us a minister!"

As all expected, up came the steward; very early and very angry. Nobody from the minister's house cared to encounter him. He threw the letters down upon the threshold of the door, and shouted out that his bringing them back was more than the writer deserved. If he had read them, and made mischief of their contents, nobody could, under the circumstances, have blamed him. Here they were, however, as a lesson to the family not to lose their time, and waste their precious ink and paper in writing letters that would never leave the island.

As he was turning to go away, the widow opened her door, and asked if he would excuse her for troubling him with one little commission which she had not thought of the day before, and she produced the ball of thread.

Lady Carse was watching through a chink in a shutter. She saw the steward's countenance relax, and heard his voice soften as he spoke to the widow. She perceived that Annie had influence with him, if she would use it faithfully and zealously. Next she observed the care with which he wrote in his note book Annie's directions about her commission, and how he deposited the precious ball in his securest pocket. She felt that this chance of escape, though somewhat precarious, was the best that had yet occurred.

Before the steward was out of sight she opened the shutter, though it creaked perilously, and kissed her hand to the surprised Annie, who was watching her agent down the hill. Annie smiled, but secured caution by immediately going in.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

TRUE SOLITUDE.

The season advanced, bringing the due tokens of the approach of summer. The gales came from the east instead of the west, and then subsided into mild airs. The mists which had brooded over sea and land melted away, and, as the days lengthened, permitted the purple heights of the rocky Saint Kilda to be seen clear and sharp, as the sun went down behind them. The weed which had blackened the shore of the island at the end of winter was now gone from the silver sands. Some of it was buried in the minister's garden as manure. The minister began to have hopes of his garden. He had done his best to keep off the salt spray by building the wall ten feet high; and it was thought that just under the wall a few cabbages might grow; and in one corner there was an experiment going forward to raise onions. Kate and Adam told the widow, from day to day, the hopes and fears of the household about this garden; and it was then that she knew that her son Rollo was now gardener, as he had been head builder of the wall.

From Rollo himself she heard less and less of his proceedings and interests. Anxious as she was, she abstained from questioning or reproving him on the few occasions when he spent an hour with her. She was aware of his high opinion of himself, and of the point he made of managing his own affairs; and she knew that there were those next door who would certainly engross him if anything passed in his mother's house to make him reluctant to stay there. She therefore mustered all her cheerfulness when he appeared on the threshold, gave him her confidence, made him as comfortable as she could, and never asked him whence he had come, or how long he would stay. She had a strong persuasion that Rollo would discover in time who was his best friend, and was supremely anxious that when that time came there should be nothing to get over in his return to her—no remembrance of painful scenes—no sting of reproach—no shame but such as he must endure from his own heart. Strong as was her confidence in the final issue, the time did seem long to her yearning spirit, lonely as she was. Many a night she listened to the melancholy song of the throstle from the hill-side, and watched the mild twilight without thinking of sleep, till was silent; and was still awake when the lark began its merry greeting to the dawn which was streaking the east. Many a day she sat in the sun watching the pathways by which she hoped her son might come to her; and then perhaps she would hear his laugh from behind the high garden wall, and discover that he had been close at hand all day without having a word to say to her. How many true and impressive things passed through her mind that she thought she would say to him! But they all remained unsaid. When the opportunity came she saw it to be her duty to serve him by waiting and loving, feeling and trusting that rebuke from God was the only shock which would effectually reach this case, and reserving herself as the consoler of the sinner when that hour should arrive.

As for the other parties, they were far too busy—far too much devoted to each other to have any time to spare for her, or any thought, except when the children were wished out of the way, or when the much more ardent desire was indulged that her house could be had for the residence of Lady Carse and her maid. In spite of all the assurances given to Lady Carse that her presence and friendship were an unmixed blessing, the fact remained that the household were sadly crowded in the new dwelling. There was talk, at times, of getting more rooms built: but then there entered in a vague hope that the widow's house might be obtained, which would be everything pleasant and convenient. At those times she was thought of, but more and more as an obstruction—almost an intruder. Now and then, when she startled them by some little act of kindness, they remarked that she was a good creature, they believed, though they considered that there was usually something dangerous about people so very reserved and unsociable.

One day this reserved and unsociable person volunteered a visit to her astonished neighbours. She walked in, in the afternoon, looking rather paler than usual, and somewhat exhausted. Mr Ruthven was outside the door, smoking his pipe after dinner. He came in with the widow, and placed a stool for her. His wife was not in the room. Lady Carse was lying on the settle, flushed and apparently drowsy. She opened her eyes as Annie and the minister entered, and then half-closed them again, without stirring.

"Yes, I have been walking," said the widow, in answer to Mr Ruthven's observation. "But it is not that that has tired me. I have been only as far as Macdonald's. But, sir, I must go further to-night, unless I can interest you to do what must be done without loss of time."

The minister raised his eyebrows, and looked inquiringly. "I have learned, sir, that from this house invitations have been sent to smugglers to begin a trade with these islands, and that it is about to begin; and that this has been done by corrupting my son. I see well enough the object of this. I see that Lady Carse hopes to escape to the main by a smuggling vessel coming to this coast. I can enter into this. I do not wonder at any effort the poor lady makes—"

"You insufferable woman!" cried Lady Carse, starting up from her half-sleep with a glowing face and a clenched hand. "Do you dare to pity me?"

"I do, madam: and I ask of you in return—I implore you to pity me. This is the bitterest day to me since that which made my boy fatherless. I have this day discovered that my fatherless boy has been corrupted by those who—"

"I do not approve of innuendo," declared Mr Ruthven. "I recommend you to name names."

"Certainly, sir. My son has been made a smuggler by the persuasion and management of Lady Carse; and, as I have reason to believe, sir, with your knowledge."

"Here is treachery!" cried Lady Carse. "We must make our part good. I will—I know how—"

She was hastening out, when the minister stopped her at the door. She made some resistance, and Annie heard her say something about a pistol on the top of the bed, and the wonder if her father's daughter did not know how to use it.

Even in the midst of her own grief, Annie could not but remark to herself how the lady's passions seemed to grow more violent, instead of calming down.

"You had better go, Mrs Fleming," said Mr Ruthven. "Make no disturbance here, but go, and I will come in and speak to you."

"How soon?" Annie anxiously enquired.

"As soon as possible—immediately. Go now, for Lady Carse is very angry."

"I will, sir. But I owe it to you to tell you that the adventure is put an end to. I have been to Macdonald's and told him, speaking as Rollo's mother, of the danger my son was in; and Macdonald will take care that no smuggling vessel reaches this coast to-night or in future."

"Go instantly!" exclaimed Mr Ruthven, and, seeing Lady Carse's countenance, Annie was glad to hasten out of her reach.

The widow sat down on the threshold of her cottage awaiting the minister. Her heart throbbed. A blessing might be in store at the end of this weary day. Good might come out of evil. She might now have an opportunity of appealing to her minister—of opening her heart to him about the cares which she needed to share with him, and which should have been his cares as pastor. She trusted she should be enabled to speak freely and calmly.

She prayed that she might; but her body was exhausted, so that she could not overcome to her satisfaction the agitation of her mind. It did not mend the matter that she was kept waiting very long; and when Mr Ruthven came out at his own door, it was with some difficulty that Annie rose to make respectful way for him.

"Be seated," said Mr Ruthven, in a tone of severity; "I have much to say to you."

Both seated themselves. Mr Ruthven cleared his throat, and said—

"It is the most painful part of a pastor's duty to administer reproof, and more especially to members of his flock whose years should have brought them wisdom and self-control."

Annie clasped her hands on her knees, and looked meekly in his face.

"I should have hoped," Mr Ruthven went on, "that a Christian woman of your standing, and one who is blest, as you yourself have been known to acknowledge, with a life of peace, would have had compassion on a most suffering sister, and have rather striven to alleviate her sorrows, and to soften her occasional self-reproach for what she amiably calls her infirmities of sensibility, than have wounded and upbraided her, and treacherously cut off her frail chance of release from a most unjust captivity."

"I!—I wound and upbraid Lady Carse!"

"Now, do not compel me to remind you of what you ought to know full well—the deceitfulness of the human heart. Listen to me."

Again Annie looked gently in his face.

"I left that poor lady, already overwhelmed with misfortune, prostrated anew by your attack of this afternoon. I left her dissolved in tears— shaken by agitation; and I resolved that my first act of duty should be to remonstrate privately—observe, I say privately—against the heartlessness which could pour in drops of bitterness to make the already brimming cup overflow. Now, what have you to say?"

"I should wish to know, sir, what part of my conduct it is that is wrong. If I knew this, I am sure—"

"If you knew! My good woman, this blindness and self-satisfaction appear to show that this life of peace, which you yourself acknowledge yours has been, has gone somewhat too far—has not been altogether blessed to you. If you are really so satisfied with yourself as to be unable to see any sin within you—"

"Oh, sir! Do not think me impatient if I make haste to say that I never harboured such a thought. It makes me sink with shame to think of my ever having possibly such a thought. What I asked for, sir, was to know my sin towards Lady Carse, that I might make reparation if I could, and—will it please you, sir, to tell me—"

"Tell me, rather, what sin you are conscious of; and we shall then get at the bottom of this last offence. Come, let me hear!"

Annie looked down, hesitated, blushed deeply, and said she supposed it was owing to her not being accustomed to the blessing of having a pastor that she found it so difficult to open her heart now that the blessing was given for which she had so often prayed. She would strive to overcome the difficulty. After a pause she said her chief trouble about her state of mind was that some of her trust and peace seemed to have left her.

"Ah! the moment it is put to the test!" said Mr Ruthven.

"Just so, sir; that is what I said to myself. As long as I lived alone, out of the sound of any voice but Rollo's, I thought my peace was settled, and that I was only waiting for the better peace which is to come hereafter. Then, when Rollo was away, and my mind was searching doubtfully after him, where he might be, and whether safe or killed, I could always find rest, and say to myself that he was in God's hand, to die now or to live to close my eyes. But now, sir, there is a sadness come over me; though I am obliged to your dear children for many cheerful hours—I would not forget that. But as for my own child, when I hear his voice merry from behind your garden wall, when I have been longing for days to see his face—or when your children tell me things that he has said, just while my ear is pining for his voice, I find myself less settled in mind than I was—much less settled, sir, than I think a Christian woman ought to be."

"And this indicates more than you tell me," observed Mr Ruthven. "What can you have done to drive your son from his home and from his mother's side? Some mistake there must be, to say the very least—some fatal mistake, I will call it, for I would not be severe—some awful mistake. Eh?"

"Perhaps so, sir." And she smothered a sigh.

The minister then gave her, at some length, his views on education, insisting much on the duty of making young people happy at home; ending with saying that no young man could, he thought, expect much comfort in the society of a mother who could be so reckless of anybody's peace as she had shewn herself that afternoon. He hoped she would take what he said in good part. It was not pleasant to him to deal rebuke but he must not shrink from it; and he rose to go.

"Certainly, sir," said Annie, rising too, and holding by the bed to steady herself. "But, sir, if you would please to tell me particularly what you think I have done so wrong to-day—Sir, you would not have me let my son be made a smuggler?"

"You should—Nothing can be clearer than that you should—I wonder you need to be told that you should have spoken to me. Instead of which, you went quietly and told Macdonald."

"I am sure, sir, I thought you knew all about it."

"What of that? I am here at hand, to be your adviser—not to be treated with disrespect. I leave you now to think over what I have said. I trust the result will be that you will make what reparation you can to Lady Carse: though it is foolish to talk of reparation; for the mischief done is, I fear, irreparable. I leave you to think of this. Good evening!"

Annie thought of all that had passed; and of a few other things. She thought that while it was clear that a pastor might take a wrong view of the state of mind and conduct of one of his flock, it was a privilege to know, at least, what view he took. He was faithful, as far as plain speaking went: and that was much. And then, it is so rarely that any censure is uttered for which there is absolutely no foundation, that it is usually profitable to receive it. While feeling that "it is a small thing to be judged of man's judgment," it may be a great thing to know a man's unfavourable opinion of us. She would soon recover from this conversation; and then, if she had obtained any wisdom from it, it would be, after all, the marking blessing of this day. She was not aware of another: that Mr Ruthven had been somewhat touched by what she had said of Rollo—his eyes somewhat opened.

Once more her mind rested on the idea now become so prominent with her. "The sabbath is coming round again," she thought. "It pleases God to give us a complete blessing then. It is His word that is spoken then— His judgment that we are judged by. Nothing comes between us and Him then. There is always the sabbath now to think of."

Tired as she was, or as she thought herself till she found herself enjoying the repose of the moonlight shore, there was one more walk necessary before Annie could try to sleep.

The sea was calm, and there was scarcely any wind. If the smuggling vessel had approached the island in any part, it could hardly have got away again. She had not seen it from her hill-side; but she must be satisfied that it was not on the northern shore. The western was safe enough, from its being overlooked from Macdonald's farm.

Annie had just reached the longest and widest stretch of beach when the large moon rose out of the still waters. There was not even the slightest veil of mist obscuring the horizon; and the fluctuation of the water-line was distinct upon the clear disk of the moon. The gush of quivering light which instantaneously reached from the horizon to her feet illumined Annie's heart no less than the scene around her. The ripple of the little waves which played upon the pebbles was music to her ear. In a tranquil and hopeful spirit she thought of her errand, and looked steadily over the whole expanse of the sea, where, under the broad moonlight, and a sky which had at this season no darkness in it, there was certainly no vessel in sight.

Pursuing her walk northwards, she perceived a small dark object lying on the silvery sands. When she reached it, she found it was a little cask, which the smell declared to contain rum. By the smell, and the cask being light, it was clear that some of the spirit had been spilled. Annie found a small hole, beside which lay a quill. She feared that this told too plainly of the neighbourhood of smugglers, and her heart sunk. She went on, and immediately saw another dark object lying on the beach—a person, as she thought. It was a woman, in the common country clothing, sound asleep. Annie hastened to wake her, thinking it unsafe to sleep under the moon's rays. To her extreme surprise she found it was Lady Carse.

She could imagine the lady to have come down in hope of meeting a smuggling vessel. She would not have wondered to meet her wandering among the coves; but that on such an errand, at such a time, she should be asleep, was surprising.

Annie tried gentle means to rouse her, which would enable her to slip away as the lady awoke, sparing her the pain of her presence. She rattled the pebbles with her foot, coughed, and at last sang—but all without causing the lady to stir. Then the widow was alarmed, and stooped to look closer. The sleeper breathed heavily, her head was hot, and her breath told the secret of her unseasonable drowsiness. Annie shrank back in horror. At first she concluded that much of Lady Carse's violent passion was now accounted for. But she presently considered it more probable that this was a single instance of intemperance, caused by the temptation of finding a leaking cask of spirit on the sands, just in a moment of disappointment, and perhaps of great exhaustion. This thought made Annie clear what to do.

She went back to the cask, made the hole larger with a stone, and poured out all the rum upon the sand. The cask was now so light that she could easily roll it down to the margin of the tide, where she left it, half full of sea-water. Having thus made all safe behind her, she proceeded to the coves, where she found, not any signs of a vessel, but one of Macdonald's men on the watch. From him she learned that Macdonald had gone out to look for the smuggling boat; had seen it, and turned it back; and that the smuggling crew had been obliged to throw overboard some of their cargo to lighten their vessel for flight. Macdonald thought they would hardly venture hither again for some time to come. This was good news; but there was better; Rollo was not with the smugglers. He was out fowling this afternoon. Perhaps by this time he might be at home.

Annie's errand was finished; and she might now return and rest. Macdonald's man spoke of his hope of some goods being washed up by the next tide. Annie told him nothing of the cask, nor of what she had done with the rum. She commended him to his watch, and left him.

Lady Carse was still sleeping, but less heavily. She roused herself when spoken to, started up, and looked about her, somewhat bewildered. "I took the liberty, madam, of speaking to you, to waken you," said Annie; "because the moon is up, and was shining on your head, which is considered bad for the health."

"Really," said Lady Carse, "it is very odd. I don't know how I could think of falling asleep here. I suppose I was very tired."

"You look so now, madam. Better finish your sleep at home. And first, if I may advise you, you will throw some salt water on your head, and drink some fresh at the spring, when we come to it. The people here say that bathing the head takes away the danger from sleeping under the moon's rays."

Lady Carse had no objection to do this, as her head was hot; and now Annie hoped that she would escape detection by the Ruthvens, so that she alone would know the secret. Both drank at the spring, and after that it might be hoped that there would be little more smell of spirits about the one than the other.

When they passed the cask, now beginning to float in the rising tide, Lady Carse started. It was clear that she now remembered what had made her sleep. "There is a cask!" said she, in her hurry.

"Yes, a cask of sea-water," Annie quietly observed. "I emptied out the bad stuff that was in it, and—"

"You did! What right had you?"

"It was contraband," said Annie. "Macdonald saw the cargo thrown over: nobody would have claimed it, and plenty would have helped themselves to what is unfit to drink. So I poured it out upon the sand."

"Very free and easy, I must say," observed Lady Carse.

"Very," Annie agreed; "but less of a liberty than some would have taken, if I had left it to tempt them. I threw away only what is some man's unlawful property. Others would have thrown away that which belongs to God, and is very precious in His eyes—the human reason, which he has made but a little lower than the glory of the angels."

Lady Carse spoke no more—not even when they reached their own doors. Whether she was moody or conscience-stricken, Annie could not tell. All the more anxious was she to do her part; and she went in to pray that the suffering lady might be saved from this new peril—the most fearful of the snares of her most perilous life. Annie did not forget to pray that those who had driven the sufferer to such an extremity as that she could not resist even this means of forgetting her woes, might be struck with such a sense of their cruelty as to save their victim before it was too late.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

HELSA'S NEWS.

One day when Annie was trimming her lamp, she observed Helsa, Lady Carse's maid, watching the process earnestly from the door, where she was looking in. "Come in, Helsa," said the widow, in Gaelic, which was more familiar to the girl than English. "Come in, if you have nothing better to do than to see me trim my lamp."

"I am afraid about that lamp, and that is the truth," replied Helsa. "I had charge of a lamp at Macdonald's once, when my mother went to the main for a week; but then, if it went out, nobody was much the worse. If this one goes out, and anybody drowns in the harbour, and the blame is mine, what shall I do?"

"The blame yours!" said the widow, looking at her.

"Yes; when you live at Macdonald's, and I have to keep the lamp. I am not sure that I can keep awake all the night when winter comes: but they say I must."

Helsa was surprised to find that the widow knew nothing of the plan that Lady Carse now talked of more than anything else: that Annie was to go and live at Macdonald's, that Lady Carse and her maid might have the widow's house, where Helsa was to do all the work in the day, and to keep the lamp at night. The girl declared that the family never sat at meals without talking of the approaching time when they could all have more room and do whatever they pleased. Adam had cried yesterday about the widow going away; but he had been forbidden to cry about what would make Lady Carse so much happier; and when Kate had whispered to him that Lady Carse would no longer live in their house, Adam had presently dried his tears, and began to plan how he would meet the widow sometimes on the western sands, to pick up the fine shells she had told him of. Helsa went on to say that she could have cried longer than the boy, for she was afraid to think of being alone with Lady Carse at times when—

Annie interrupted her by saying, with a smile, "You need not have any dread of living in this house, Helsa. I have no thought of leaving it. There is some mistake."

Helsa was delighted with this assurance. But she proved her point—that the mistake was not hers—that such a plan was daily, almost hourly, spoken of next door as settled. She was going on to tell how her mistress frightened her by her ways: her being sleepy in the afternoons, unless she was very merry or dreadfully passionate, and so low in the mornings that she often did little but cry; but the widow checked this. While at Mrs Ruthven's house Helsa should make no complaints to anybody else; or, if she had serious complaints to make, it should be to Macdonald. Helsa pleaded that Macdonald would then perhaps take away the anker of spirits, as being at the bottom of the mischief; and then Lady Carse would kill her. She had once shown her a pistol; but nobody could find that pistol now. Helsa laughed, and looked us if she could have told where it was. In a moment, however, she was grave enough, hearing herself called by her mistress.

"I shall say I came to learn about the lamp," said she; "and that is true, you know."

"Why do not you speak English, both of you?" demanded Lady Carse from the door. "You both speak English. I will have no mysteries. I will know what you were saying."

Helsa faltered out that she came to see how Widow Fleming managed her lamp.

"Was it about the lamp that you were talking? I will know."

"If we had any objection, madam, to your knowing what we were saying," interposed Annie, "we are by no means bound to tell. But you are quite welcome to it. I have been assuring Helsa that there is some mistake about my leaving this house. Here have I lived, and here I hope to die."

"We must talk that matter over," declared Lady Carse. "We are so crowded next door that we can bear it no longer; and I must live in sight of the harbour, you know."

And she went over all the old arguments, while she sent Helsa to bring in Mr Ruthven, that he might add his pastoral authority to her claims. After having once declared herself immovable, Annie bore all in silence; the pleas that her lamp was so seldom wanted; that it would be well tended for her, while she could sleep all night, and every night; that it had become a passion with Lady Carse to obtain this house, and that anyone was an enemy who denied her the only thing she could enjoy. These pleas Annie listened to in silence, and then to reproaches on her selfishness, her obstinacy, her malice and cruelty. When both her visitors had exhausted their arguments, she turned to Lady Carse, and intimated that now they had all spoken their minds on this subject, she wished to be alone in her own house. Then she turned to Mr Ruthven, and told him that whatever he had to say as her pastor, she would gladly listen to.

"In some other place than this," he declared with severity. "I have tried rebuke and remonstrance here, beside your own hearth, with a perseverance which I fear has lowered the dignity of my office. I have done. I enter this house no more as your pastor."

Annie bowed her head, and remained standing till they were gone; then she sank down, melting into tears.

"This, then," and her heart swelled at the thought; "this, then, is the end of my hope—the brightest hope I ever had since my great earthly hope was extinguished! I thought I could bear anything if there was only a pastor at hand. And now—but there is my duty still; nothing can take that away. And I am forgetting that at this very moment, when I have so little else left! crying in this way when I want better eyes than mine are now for watching the sea. I have shed too many tears in my day; more than a trusting Christian woman should; and now I must keep my eyes dry and my heart firm for my duty. And I cannot see that I have done any wrong in staying by the duty that God gave me, and the house that I must do it in. With this house and God's house—" And her thoughts recurred, as usual, to the blessing of the sabbath. She should still have a pastor in God's house, if not in her own. And thus she cheered her heart while she bathed her eyes that they might serve for her evening gaze over the sea.

She was destined, however, to be overtaken by dismay on the sabbath, and in that holy house where she had supposed her peace could never be disturbed. The pastor read and preached from the passage in the 18th chapter of Matthew, which enjoins remonstrance with sinners, first in private, then in the presence of one or two witnesses, and at last before the church. The passage was read so emphatically that Annie's heart beat thick and fast. But this did not prepare her for what followed. In his sermon the pastor explained that though the scriptural expression was, "If thy brother trespass," the exhortation was equally applicable to any Christian sister who should offend. He declared that if any Christian sister was present who was conscious of having trespassed on the comfort and natural feelings of an afflicted and persecuted personage whom they had the honour to entertain among them, he besought the offending sister to enquire of herself whether she had not been rebuked first alone, then in the presence of a witness—alas! in vain; and whether, therefore, the time had not come for a rebuke before the Church. He would, however, name no one, but leave yet some place for repentance; and so forth.

Annie's natural dismay, terrible as it was, soon yielded before the appeal to her conscience, which the pastor supposed would appal her. She knew that she was right; and in this knowledge she raised her bowed head, and listened more calmly than many others. If there had been any doubt among the small congregation as to who was meant, Lady Carse would have dispersed it. She sat in the front row, with the minister's family. Unable to restrain her vindictive satisfaction, she started up and pointed with her finger, and nodded at Annie. The pitying calm gaze with which Annie returned the insult went to many hearts, and even to Mrs Ruthven's so far so that she pulled the lady by the skirt, and implored her to sit down.

There are many precious things which remain always secrets to those who do not deserve to know them. For instance, tyrants know nothing of the animating and delicious reaction which they cause in the souls of their victims. The cheerfulness, sweetness and joy of their victims has ever been, and will ever be, a perplexity to oppressors. It was so now to Mr Ruthven, after an act of tyranny perpetrated, as most acts of tyranny are, under a mistaken, an ignorant and arrogant sense of duty. Not only did the widow stand up with others for the closing psalm—her voice was the firmest, sweetest, clearest in the assembly—so sweet and clear that it came back even upon her own ear with a sort of surprise. As for others, all were more or less moved. But their emotion had the common effect of making them draw back from the object of it. After the service, nobody spoke to Annie. She heeded this but little, absorbed as she was in thankfulness in finding that the privileges of God's house were not disturbed—that her relation to Him and her rights of worship were not touched by any fallibility in His minister. As she reached the entrance of the churchyard, Macdonald overtook her, and made her use his arm for the descent of the irregular steps. A few words from Helsa had put him in possession of the case. He desired the widow not to think for a moment of leaving her house. Everybody wished to do what could be done to reconcile the stranger lady to her abode in the island; but there was a point beyond which he was sure Sir Alexander would not permit encroachment. His advice was to serve and please her in small affairs, and leave it to Sir Alexander to deal with her in such an important one as her having a house to herself. Annie smiled, and said this was exactly her plan.

That evening was, to the inhabitants of the island, the most memorable one of the year—of the generation—of the century. This was not fully known at the time. The most memorable days often appear just like other days till they are past; and though there was some excitement and bustle this evening, no one on the island saw the full meaning of what was before his eyes.

A little before sunset, the widow plainly saw a larger vessel than often visited those seas approaching from the south-west. It was larger than Macdonald's sloop. She was straining her eyes to see whether it had two masts or three, when she heard the children's voices below. She called them up to her platform for the help of their young eyes; but when they came, they could spare little attention for the distant vessel, so full were they of the news that their mother had run down to the harbour to try to speak to some sailors who had landed from a boat which had come up the harbour while everybody was at church. It was such a pity that their father was gone, just at this time, to visit a sick person at Macdonald's farm! But their mother went directly, as fast as she could run, and Lady Carse and Helsa were to follow her as soon as Helsa had put up a bundle.

To recall Mr Ruthven was the first thing Annie thought of. She did not venture to send the children over for him, lest their hurry and excitement, or any air of mystery, should give the alarm to Macdonald. She set out alone, doubtful as she was how and how soon she could accomplish the walk, and bitterly lamenting that her son was not within call. With her best exertions, her progress was so slow that she met the pastor a quarter of a mile from Macdonald's house.

Breathless as she was, Mr Ruthven would have from her a full, true, and particular account of all she knew, and many declarations that she did not know as much again, before he would walk on. At last, however, he did set forth quickly on the shortest path to the harbour, while Annie turned slowly homewards over the ridge.

She was on the hill-side, not far from home, when she saw the well-known group of neighbours—the pastor's family—coming homewards, slowly and with many delays. She heard loud angry voices; and when she approached, she saw tokens of distress in them all. Mr Ruthven was very pale, and Helsa very red. Mrs Ruthven was in tears, and Lady Carse's clothes and hair were dripping wet. It was clear that she had been in the water.

"Alas! you have missed the boat!" exclaimed Annie.

Lady Carse had just lost the chance of escape, as all believed; and all were now quarrelling as to whose fault it was. Mrs Ruthven was turning back from the shore, breathless from haste and vexation, as Lady Carse and Helsa came down. The boat, with several armed men in it, had pushed off when Mrs Ruthven appeared. They made no reply to her signs, but lay on their oars at a little distance from the beach till Lady Carse and her maid came down. After some delay, and many signals of entreaty from the ladies, the boat again approached, and the man in command of it was told that a lady of quality, wrongfully imprisoned in this island, desired to be carried to the main, and that, once among her friends in Edinburgh, she could give rewards for her escape to any amount. There was a short consultation in the boat, a laugh, and a decisive pull to shore. A sailor jumped out and seized the lady to carry her in. Whether it was the unaccountable shout of triumph that she set up, or something else that startled the sailor, he hastily set down his burden on the rock, looked her in the face, and then spoke to his comrades in the boat. They laughed again, but beckoned him on. He placed her in the boat, but she stumbled, swayed over, caught at the side of the boat as she went over, and very nearly upset it. The men swore at her, declared her to be no lady in distress, but a tipsy gipsy, laid her down on the shore, and rowed away. Mr Ruthven now declared that he could do nothing in such a case. Lady Carse, now sobered from everything but passion, protested that if he had had any sense or presence of mind, he might have detained the strangers till she could produce from her package proof of her rank and quality. If the wranglers could but have known who these strangers were, and whence came the distant vessel to which their boat belonged, all would have joined in thanksgiving for the lady's escape from their hands.

Annie had no more suspicion of the truth than they. She could only attempt to calm them, and make the best of matters by showing that possibly all might not be over yet. It was now nearly dark. If she could light two lamps for this once, it might bring back the boat. If the people on board were familiar with her light and its purpose, the singular circumstance of its being double might attract their curiosity; if strangers, they might attend to the signal from prudence.

Mr Ruthven, being extremely cross, could see nothing but nonsense in this plan. Lady Carse, being offended with her friends, thought it the wisest and most promising scheme conceivable. Mr Ruthven would not hear of spending a night down in the harbour, watching for a boat which would never come. To ask such a thing of him after his sabbath-day's services, and all for a woman's freak, was such a thing as—as he would not describe. He could not think of doing such a thing. Lady Carse said he was no friend of hers if he did not. While Mrs Ruthven trembled and wept, Annie said that if she could only learn where Rollo was, all would be easy. Rollo would watch in the harbour, she was sure.

Mr Ruthven caught at this suggestion for saving his night's rest, and went off to seek Rollo; not so rapidly, however, but that he heard the remark sent after him by Lady Carse, that it was a pretty thing for a man to stand up in his pulpit, where nobody could answer him, and lecture people about Christian duty, and then to be outdone in the first trial by the first of his flock that came into comparison with him. Annie could not bear to hear this. She desired Helsa to assist Lady Carse to bed, that her clothes might be speedily dried, in readiness for any sudden chance of escape.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

ANNIE'S NEWS.

Dull and sad was the first meal at the Ruthvens' the next morning. Lady Carse could eat nothing, having cried herself ill, and being in feverish expectation still of some news—she did not know what. Mr Ruthven found fault with the children so indefatigably, that they gulped down their porridge and slipped out under Helsa's arm as she opened the door, and away to the next house, where the voice of scolding was never heard. The pastor next began wondering whether Rollo was still playing the watchman in the harbour—tired and hungry; and he was proceeding to wonder how a clever lad like Rollo could let himself be made such a fool of by his mother, when Helsa cut short the soliloquy by telling that Rollo was at home. He had come up just now with the steward.

"The steward," cried Lady Carse, springing to her feet. "I knew it! I see it all!" And she wrung her hands.

"What is it? my dear love, my precious friend,—what is the matter? Compose yourself!" said Mrs Ruthven, soothingly.

But the lady would not hear of being soothed. It was plain now that the distant vessel, the boat, the sailors, were sent by her friends. If Mr Ruthven had only been quick enough to let them know who she was, she should by this time have been safe. How could they suppose that she was Lady Carse, dressed as she was, agitated as she was! A word from Mr Ruthven, the least readiness on his part, would have saved her. And now, here was the steward come to baffle all. Sir Alexander Macdonald had had eyes for her deliverers, though her nearest friends had none. Annie was her best friend after all. It was Annie's ball of thread, no doubt, that had roused her friends, and made them send this vessel; and Annie alone had shown any sense last night.

Mr Ruthven did not understand or approve of very sudden conversions; and this was really a sudden conversion, after pointing at the widow Fleming in church yesterday. He ought to state too that he did not approve of pointing at individuals in church. He should be sorry that his children should learn the habit; and—

"You would?" interrupted Lady Carse. "Then take care I do not point at her next sabbath as the only friend I have on this island."

"My dear creature!" said Mrs Ruthven, "pray do not say such severe things: you will break my heart. You do the greatest injustice to our affection. Only let me show you! If this wicked steward prevents your escape now, I will get away somehow, and tell your story to all the world; and they shall send another vessel for you; and I will come with it, and take you away. I will indeed."

"Nonsense, my dear," said Lady Carse.

"Nonsense, my dear," said the pastor.

Lady Carse laughed at this accord. Mrs Ruthven cried.

"If you get away," said Lady Carse, more gently, "you may be sure you will not leave me behind."

"It is all nonsense, the whole of it, about this vessel and the steward," Mr Ruthven pronounced. "The steward comes, as usual, for the feather-rent."

"It is not the season for the feather-rent," declared Lady Carse.

"The steward comes when it suits his convenience," decided the pastor; "the season is a matter of but secondary regard."

"You are mistaken," said the lady. "I have lived here longer than you; and I know that he comes at the regular seasons, and at no other time."

"Oh, here are the children," observed Mrs Ruthven, hoping to break up the party. "My dears, don't leave the room; I want you to stay beside me. There now, you may each carry your own porridge-bowl into the kitchen, and then you may come back for papa's and mine."

Mr Ruthven stalked out into the garden, to find fault with his cabbages, if they were not growing dutifully. Lady Carse stood by the window, fretted at the thick seamy glass which prevented her seeing anything clearly. Mrs Ruthven sat down to sew.

"Mamma," said Adam, presently, "what is a Pretender?"

"A what, my dear?—a Pretender? I really scarcely know. That is a question that you should ask your papa. A Pretender?"

"No, no, Adam. It is Adventurer. That was what the steward said. I know it, because that is the name of one of papa's books. I will show it you."

"I know that," said Adam. "But Widow Fleming called it Pretender, too."

"What's that?" cried Lady Carse, turning hastily from the window. "What are you talking about?"

The children looked at each other, as they usually did when somebody must answer the lady. "What are you talking about?"

"The steward says the Pretender has come: and we do not know what that means."

"The Pretender come!" cried Mrs Ruthven, letting fall her work. "What shall we do for news? Run, my dears, and ask Widow Fleming all about it. I can't leave Lady Carse, you see."

The children declared they dared not go. Widow Fleming was busy; and she had sent them away. "Then go and tell your father. Ask him to come in." Mr Ruthven was shocked into his usual manners when he saw Lady Carse unable to stand or speak. His assurances that he did not believe her in any personal danger, if the report were ever so true, were thrown away. Her consternation was about a different aspect of the matter. She at once concluded that the cause of the Stuarts would be triumphant. She saw in imagination all her enemies victorious—her husband and Lord Lovat successful in all their plottings, high in power and glory; while she, who could have given timely intimation of their schemes—she who could have saved the throne and kingdom—was confined to this island like an eagle in a cage. For some time she sat paralysed by her emotions; then she rose and went in silence to Annie's dwelling. The steward was just departing, and he seemed in the more haste for the lady's appearance; but Annie stopped him—gravely desired him to remain while she told the lady what it concerned her to know. She then said, "I learn from the steward, madam, that it is known throughout Edinburgh that you are still in life, and that you are confined to some out-of-the-way place, though, the steward believes, the real place is not known."

"It is not known," the steward declared; "and it is anything but kind of you, in my opinion, Mrs Fleming, to delude Lady Carse with any hope of escape. Her escape is, and will always be, impossible."

"I think it my business," said Annie, "to inform the lady of whatever I hear of her affairs. I think she ought to have the comfort of knowing that her friends are alarmed: and I am sure I have no right to conceal it from her."

The steward walked away, while the lady stood lost in reverie. One set of ideas had driven out the other. She had forgotten all about the Jacobite news, and she stood staring with wide open eyes, as the vision of her escape and triumph once more intoxicated her imagination.

Annie gently drew her attention to the facts, telling her that it was clear that the ball of thread had done its duty well. The alarm had begun with Mr Hope, the advocate. He had demanded that the coffin supposed to contain the remains of Lady Carse should be taken up and searched. When he appeared likely to obtain his demand, Lord Carse had avoided the scandal of the proceeding by acknowledging that it had been a sham funeral. Annie believed that now the lady had only to wait as patiently as she could, in the reasonable hope that her friends would not rest until they had rescued her.

At this moment Lady Carse's quick sense was caught by Adam's pulling the widow's gown and asking in a whisper, "What is a Pretender?" and by Annie's soft reply, "Hush, my dear!"

"Hush! do you say?" exclaimed Lady Carse, with a start. "What do you mean by saying 'hush'? Is the Pretender come? Answer me. Has the Pretender landed in Scotland?"

"He has not landed, madam. He is in yonder vessel. You had a great deliverance, madam, in not being taken away by his boat last night."

"Deliverance! There is no deliverance for me," said the lady. "Every hope is dashed. There is no kindness in holding out new hopes to me. My enemies will not let me stay here now my friends know where to find me. I shall be carried to Saint Kilda, or some other horrible place; or, if they have not time to take care of me while they are setting up their new king, they will murder me. Oh, I shall never live to see Edinburgh again: and my husband and Lovat will be lording it there, and laughing at me and my vain struggles during all these years, while I lie helpless in my grave, or tossing like a weed in these cruel seas. If God will but grant my prayer, and let me haunt them! Stop, stop: do not go away."

"I must, madam, if you talk so."

"Stop. I want to know about this Pretender. Why did you not tell us sooner? Why not the moment you knew?"

"I considered it was the steward's business to tell what he thought proper: but I have no objection to give all the particulars. I know he whom they call Prince Charlie is in yonder vessel, which carries eighteen guns. It cannot hold many soldiers; and Sir Alexander does not believe that he will be joined by any from his islands. He is thought to have a good many officers with him—"

"How many?"

"Some say twenty; some say forty. It is pretty sure that Glengarry will join him—"

"Glengarry! Then all is lost."

"Sir Alexander thinks not. He and Macleod have written to the Lord President, that not a man from these islands will join."

"They have written to Duncan Forbes! Now, if they were wise, they would send me to him—You need not look so surprised. He is a friend of mine; and glad enough he would be at this moment to know what I could tell him of the Edinburgh Jacobites. Where is the Lord President at this time?"

"In the north, I think, preparing against the rising."

"Ay; at his own place near Inverness. If I could but get a letter to him—Perhaps he knows already that I am not dead. If I could see Sir Alexander! Oh! there are so many ways opening, if I had but the least help from anybody to use the opportunity! Sir Alexander ought to know that I am a loyal subject of King George; and that my enemies are not."

"True," said Annie. "I will endeavour to speak to the steward again before he sails, and tell him that."

"I will speak to him, myself. Ah! I see your unwillingness; but I have learnt—it would be strange if I had not—to trust nobody with my business. With Prince Charlie so near, there is no saying who is a Jacobite, and who is not. I will see the steward myself."

Annie knew that this would fail; and so it did. The steward's dispositions were not improved by the lady's method of pleading. He told her that Sir Alexander's loyalty to King George had nothing to do with his pledge that Lord Carse should never more be troubled by her. He had pledged his honour that she should cause no more disturbance, and no political difficulties would make him forfeit his word. The steward grew dogged during the interview.

Did her friends in Edinburgh know that she was alive? she demanded. "Perhaps so."

Did they know where she was? "Perhaps so."

Then, should she be carried somewhere else? "Perhaps so."

To some wretched, outlandish place, further in the ocean? "Perhaps so."

Would they murder her rather than yield her up? "Perhaps so."

The steward's heart smote him as he said this, but he forgave himself on the plea that the vixen brought it all upon herself. So, when she asked the further question—

"Is there any chance for the Pretender?—any danger that he may succeed?" the answer still was "Perhaps so."

Mr Ruthven, who was prowling about in search of news, heard these last words, and they produced a great effect upon him.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

TIMELY EVASION.

Mr Ruthven was walking up and down his garden that afternoon in a disturbed state of mind, when his wife came to him and asked him what he thought Lady Carse could be in want of. She was searching among his books and boxes as if she wanted something. He hastened in.

"Yes," Lady Carse replied, in answer to his question; "I want that pistol that used to be kept on the top of your bed. You need not look so frightened. I am not going to shoot you, nor anybody you ought to care for."

"I should like to understand, however," observed the pastor. "It is unusual for ladies to employ fire-arms, I believe, except in apprehension of the midnight thief: and I am not aware of any danger from burglars in these islands."

"Why no," replied the lady. "We have no great temptation to offer to burglars; and nothing to lose worth the waste of powder and bullet."

"Then, if I may ask—"

"O yes; you may ask what I want the pistol for. It strikes me that the boat from yonder vessel may possibly be sent back for me yet. They may think me a prize worth having, if the stupid people carried my story right. I would go with them—I would go joyfully—for the chance of shooting that young gentleman through the head."

"Young gentleman!" repeated Mr Ruthven, aghast.

"Yes, the young Pretender. My father lost his life for shooting a Lord President. His daughter is the one to go beyond him, by getting rid of a Prince Charlie. It would be a tale for history, that he was disposed of among these islands by the bravery of a woman. Why, you look so aghast," she continued, turning from the husband to the wife, "that— Yes, yes. Oh, ho! I have found you out!—you are Jacobites! I see it in your faces. I see it. There now, don't deny it Jacobites you are— and henceforth my enemies."

With stammering eagerness, both husband and wife denied the charge. The fact was, they were not Jacobites; neither had they any sustaining loyalty on the other side. They understood very little of the matter, either way; and dreaded, above everything, being pressed to take any part. They thought it very hard to have their lot cast in precisely that corner of the empire where it was first necessary to take some part before knowing what the nation, or the majority, meant to do. First, they prevented the lady's finding the pistol, as the safest proceeding on the whole; next, they wished themselves a thousand miles off, so earnestly and so often, that it occurred to them to consider whether they could not accomplish a part of this desire, and get a hundred miles away, or fifty, or twenty—somewhere, at least, out of sight of the Pretender's privateer.

In a few hours the privateer was out of sight—"Gone about north," the steward declared, "for supplies:" as nobody was willing to give them any help while under the shadow of Macdonald and Macleod. In the evening, little Kate rushed into Annie's cottage, silently threw her arms about the widow's neck, and almost strangled her with a tight hug. Adam followed, and struggled to do the same. When he wanted to speak, he began to cry; and grievously he cried, sobbing out, "What will you do without me? You can't see the boats at sea well now; and soon, perhaps, you will hardly be able to see them at all. And I was to have helped you: and now what will you do?"

"And papa would not let us come sooner," said the weeping Kate, "because we had to pack all our things in such a hurry. He said we need not come to you till he came to bid you good-bye. But I made haste, and then I came."

"But, my dears, when are you going? where are you going?"

"Oh, we are going directly: the steward is in such a hurry! And papa says we are not to cry; and we are not to come back any more. And we shall never get any of those beautiful shells on the long sands, that you promised me; and—"

Here Mr Ruthven entered. He had no time to sit down. He told the children that they must not cry; but that they might kiss their friend, and thank her for her kindness to them, and tell her that they should never see her any more. There was so much difficulty with the sobbing children on this last point, that he gave it up for want of time, threatening to see about making them more obedient when he was settled on the mainland. While they clung to Annie, and hid their faces in her gown, he explained to her that his residence in this island had not answered to his expectation; that he did not find it a congenial sphere; that he was a man of peace, to whom neither domestic discord, nor the prospect of war and difficulty without, were agreeable; and that he was, therefore, taking advantage of the steward's vessel to remove himself to some quiet retreat, where the pastoral authority might be exercised without disturbance, and a man like himself might be placed in a more congenial sphere. He was then careful to explain that, in speaking of domestic discord, he was far from referring to Mrs Ruthven, who, he thought he might say, however liable to the failings of humanity, was not particularly open to blame on the ground of conjugal obedience. She was, in fact, an excellent wife; and he should be grieved to cause the most transient impression to the contrary. It was, in truth, another person—a casual inmate of his family—whom he had in his eye; a lady who—

"I understand, sir. If you will allow me to go home with you—"

"Permit me to conclude what I was saying, Mrs Fleming. That unhappy lady, in favour of whose temper it is impossible to say anything, has caused us equal uneasiness by another tendency of late—a tendency to indulge—"

But Annie did not, at such a moment, stand upon ceremony. She was by this time leading the children home, one in each hand.

"So you are really going away, and immediately?" said she to Mrs Ruthven.

"Immediately," replied the heated, anxious Mrs Ruthven.

"Where is Lady Carse?"

The question again brought tears into Mrs Ruthven's swollen eyes.

"I do not know. Mr Ruthven wishes to be gone before she returns from her walk."

"We leave her the entire house to herself," declared the pastor, now entering. "Will you bear our farewell message to her, and wish her joy from us of being possessor of the whole house; and of—"

"Here she comes," said Annie, quietly. "Lady Carse," she said, "this is a remarkable day. Here is another way opening for your deliverance—a way which appears to me so clear that you have only to be patient for a few weeks or months before your best wishes are fulfilled. Mrs Ruthven will now be able to do for you what she has so often longed to do. She is going to the main—perhaps to Edinburgh; she will see Mr Hope, and others of your friends; and tell your story. She will—"

"She will not have anything of the sort to do," interrupted Lady Carse. "I shall go and do it myself. I told her, some time since, that whenever she quitted this island I would not be left behind. I shall do my own business myself, if you please."

"That is well," interposed the pastor; "because I promised the steward, passed my solemn word to him, as a condition of my departure, that it should never become known through me or mine that Lady Carse had ever been seen by any of us. I entirely approve of Lady Carse managing her own affairs."

Annie found means to declare solemnly to Mrs Ruthven her conviction that no such promise could be binding on her, and that it was her bounden duty to spare no effort for the poor lady's release.

She was persuaded that Mrs Ruthven thought and felt with her; and that something effectual would at last be done.

The children now most needed her consolations.

"Do not be afraid," she said cheerfully to them. "I shall never forget you. I shall think of you every day. Whenever you see a sea-bird winging over this way, send me your love: and when I see our birds go south, I will send my love to you."

"And whenever," said Helsa, "you see a light over the sea, you will think of Widow Fleming's lamp, won't you?"

"And whenever," said Lady Carse, with a solemnity which froze up the children's tears, and made them look in her face, "whenever, in this world or the next, you see a quiet angel keeping watch over a sinful, unhappy mortal, you may think of Widow Fleming and me. Will you?"

The awe-struck children promised, with a sincerity and warmth which touched Lady Carse with a keen sense of humiliation; not the less keen because she had brought it upon herself by a good impulse.

The pastor and his family were presently gone; and without Lady Carse. The steward guarded against that by bringing Macdonald to fasten her into her house, and guard it, till the boat should be out of reach.

Annie did not intrude upon her unhappy neighbour for the first few hours. She thought it better to wait till she was wished for.

"Our pastor gone!" thought she, as she sat alone. "No more children's voices in this dwelling! No more worship in the church on sabbaths! Thus is our Father always giving and taking away, that we may fix our expectations on Him alone. But He always leaves us enough. He leaves us our duty and our sabbaths, whether the church be open or in ruins. And He has left me also an afflicted neighbour to comfort and strengthen. Now that she thinks she depends on me alone, I may be the better able to lead her to depend on Him."

And she was presently absorbed in meditating how best to do this most needful work.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

THE LAMP BURNS.

Annie had supposed that her life would be almost as quiet an one as it used to be when the minister and his family were gone. Lady Carse was her neighbour, to be sure; but every day showed more and more that even to such restless beings as Lady Carse, a time of quiet must come. Her health and strength had been wasting for some months, and now a change came over her visibly from week to week. She rarely moved many yards from the house, spending hours of fine weather in lying on the grass looking over the sea; and when confined to the house by the cold, in dozing on the settle.

This happened just when her prison was, as it were, thrown open, or, at least, much less carefully guarded than ever before. Prince Charlie's successes were so great as to engross all minds in this region, and almost throughout the whole of the kingdom. Wherever the Macdonalds and the Macleods had influence, there was activity, day and night. Every man in either clan, every youth capable of bearing arms, was raised and drilled, and held in readiness to march, as soon as arms should be provided by the government.

Annie had many anxieties about Rollo,—many feelings of longing and dread to hear where he was, and what he was doing. The first good news she had was that of the whole population of Skye and the neighbouring islands, not one man had joined the Pretender. The news was carefully spread, in order that it might produce its effect on any waverers, that Sir Alexander Macdonald had written to Lord President Forbes that not one man under him or Macleod had joined the Pretender's army; and that he should soon be ready to march a force of several hundred men, if arms could be sent or provided for them against their arrival at Inverness. Meantime, no day passed without the men being collected in parties, and exercised with batons, in the absence of fire-arms. Rollo came to the very first drill which took place on the island; and great was his mother's relief; and great the satisfaction with which she made haste to equip him, according to her small means, for a march to Inverness.

Here was an object too for Lady Carse. She fretted sadly, but not quite idly, about her strength failing just now when boats came to the island so often that she might have had many chances of escape if she could now have borne night watching, and exposure to weather and fatigue. She complained and wept much; but all the time she worked as hard as Annie to prepare Rollo for military service; for her very best chance now appeared to be his seeing Lord President Forbes, and telling him her story. The widow quite agreed in this; and it became the most earnest desire of the whole party,—Helsa's sympathies being drawn in,—that the summons to march might arrive. Somebody was always looking over towards Skye; and there was so much traffic on these seas at present, that some new excitement was perpetually arising. Now a meal bark arrived, telling of the capture of others by the prince's privateer: and next there was a seizure of fish for the king's service. Now all eyes were engaged, for days together, in watching the man-of-war which hovered round the coasts to prevent the rebels being reinforced by water, and arms being landed from foreign vessels: and then there were rumours, and sometimes visions, of suspicious boats skulking among the islands, or a strange sail being visible on the horizon. Such excitements made the island appear a new place, and changed entirely the life of the inhabitants. The brave enjoyed all this: the timid sickened at it; and Lady Carse wept over it as coming too late for her.

"The lady looks ill," the steward observed to the Widow Fleming, one day when, as often happened now, he came without notice. "She is so shrunk, she is not like the same person."

Annie told how she had lost strength and spirits of late. She had not been down even to the harbour for two months.

"Ay, it is a change," said the steward. "I was saying to Macdonald just now that we have been rather careless of late, having had our heads so full of other matters. I almost wondered that she had not slipped through our fingers in the hurry and bustle: but I see now how that is. However, Macdonald will keep a somewhat stricter watch; for, as I told him, it concerns Sir Alexander's honour all the more that she should not get loose, now that those who committed her to his charge are under suspicion about their politics—Ah! you see the secret is getting out now,—the reason of her punishment. She wanted to ruin them, no doubt, by telling what she knew; and they put her out of the way for safety."

"Is her husband with the Pretender then? And is Lord Lovat on that side? They are the two she is most angry with."

"Lord Carse is safe enough. He is a prudent man. He could not get into favour with the king and the minister:—they knew two much harm of him for that. So he has made himself a courtier of the Prince of Wales. He has no idea of being thrust upon the dangers of rebellion while the event is uncertain; so he attaches himself in a useless way to the reigning family. And if Prince Charlie should succeed, Lord Carse can easily show that he never favoured King George or his minister, or did them any good.—As for Lovat, he is ill and quiet at home."

"Which side is he on?"

"He complains bitterly of his son being disobedient to him, and put upon his disobedience by his Jacobite acquaintance. If the young man joins Prince Charlie, it is thought that his father will stand by King George, that the family estates may be safe whichever way the war ends,—Bless me! what a sigh! One would think—Come now, what's the matter?"

"The wickedness of it!" said Annie.

"Oh! is that all? Lovat's wickedness is nothing new; and what better could you expect from his son? By the same rule, I have great expectations of your son. As you are sound, he will be sound too, and do his king and country good service. You are both on the same side, and not like the master of Lovat and his father."

"We have no estates to corrupt our minds," observed Annie. "We have only our duty to care for."

"Ay, then, you are on the same side."

"Rollo is ready to march with the men of these islands. I am on no side, sir. I do not understand the matter, and I have nothing to do with it. There is no occasion for me to take any side."

"Why yes; as it happens, there is, Mrs Fleming: and that is one of the things that brought me here to-day. Sir Alexander Macdonald desires that you will oblige him by not burning your lamp in the night till the troubles are over."

"I am sorry that there is anything in which I cannot oblige Sir Alexander Macdonald: but I must burn my lamp."

"But hear: you do not know his reasons. There are some suspicious vessels skulking about among these islands; and you ought to show them no favour till they show what they are."

"You do not think, sir, you cannot surely think that anybody on this island is in danger from the enemy. There is nothing to bring them here,—no arms, nor wealth of any kind;—nothing that it would be worth the trouble of coming to take."

"Oh no: you are all safe enough. No enemy would lose their time here. But that is no reason why you should give them help and comfort with your beacon-light."

"You mean, sir, that if a storm drives them hither, or they lose their way, you would have them perish. Yes; that is what you mean, and that I cannot do. I must burn my lamp."

"But my good friend, consider what you are doing. Consider the responsibility if you should succour the king's enemies!"

"I did consider it well, sir, some years ago, and made up my mind. That was when the pirates were on the coast."

"You don't mean that you would have lighted pirates to shore?"

"I could not refuse to save them from drowning: and He who set me my duty blessed the deed."

"I remember hearing something of that. But if the pirates did no mischief, your neighbours owe you nothing for that. You may thank the poverty of the island."

"Perhaps so," said Annie, smiling. "And if so, I am sure we may thank God for the poverty of the island which permits us to save men's lives, instead of letting them drown. And now you see, sir—"

"I see you are as wilful on this point as I heard you were. I would not believe it, because I always thought you a superior woman. But now—I wish I could persuade you to see your duty better, Mrs Fleming."

"As my duty appears to me, sir, it is to save people's lives without regard to who they are, and what their business is."

"If the Pretender should come—"

"He would go as he came," said Annie, quietly. "He would get nothing here that could hurt the king, while the men of the island are gone to Inverness."

"Well, to be sure, if you would succour and comfort pirates, there is nobody whom you would not help."

"That is true, sir."

"But it is very dangerous, Mrs Fleming. Do you know the consequences of aiding the enemy?"

"I know the consequences of there being no light above the harbour," said Annie, in a low voice.

The steward knew it was useless to say more. He thought it better to put into her hand some newspapers which contained a startling account of the progress of the rebels, embellished with many terrifying fictions of their barbarity, such as were greedily received by the alarmists of the time.

"Here," said he. "You can look these over while I go to speak to Macdonald about removing the lady to some remoter place while we have only women on the island. Pray look over these papers, and then you will see what sort of people you may chance to bring upon your neighbours, if you persist in burning your lamp. But Sir Alexander must put forth his authority—even use force, if necessary. What do you say to that?"

"Some old words," said Annie, smiling, "given to those who are brought before governors. It shall be given me in that same hour what I shall speak."

"I will look in for the papers as I return," said the steward. "You are as wilful on your own points as your neighbour. But you must give way, as you preach that she ought—"

"I do not preach that, sir, I assure you. I wish, for her own peace, that she would yield herself to God's disposal; but I would have her, in the strength of law and justice, resist the oppression of man."

The steward smiled, nodded, and left Annie to read the newspapers.

The time was short. Lady Carse was asleep; but Annie woke her, and left one paper with her while she went home to read the other. She was absorbed in the narrative of the march of the rebels southwards, and their intention of proceeding to London, eating children, as the newspaper said, after the manner of Highlanders, all the way as they went, when Lady Carse burst in, trembling from head to foot, and unable to speak. She showed to Annie a short paragraph, which told that a vessel chartered by Mr Hope, advocate, of Edinburgh, and bound to the Western Islands, had put into the Horseshoe harbour in Lorn, to land a lady whom the captain refused to carry to her destination through a quarrel on the ground of difference of political sentiment. The lady, wife of a minister of the kirk, had sought the aid of the resident tenant to be escorted home through the disturbed districts in Argyle, while the vessel proceeded on its way—not unwatched, however, as Mr Hope's attachment to the house of Stuart was no secret, etcetera, etcetera.

The widow was perplexed; but Lady Carse knew that Mr Hope, her lawyer and her friend, was a Jacobite—the only fault he had, she declared. She was persuaded that the lady was Mrs Ruthven, and that the vessel was on its way to rescue her—might arrive at any hour of the day or night.

"But," said Annie, "this lady is loyal to King George, and you reproached the Ruthvens for being on the other side."

"O! I was wrong about her, no doubt. I detest him; but she is a good creature; and I was quite wrong ever to suspect her."

"And you think your loyalty to the king would do you no harm with Mr Hope? You think he would exert himself for you without thinking of your politics?"

"Why, don't you see what is before your eyes?" cried Lady Carse. "Is it not there, as plain as black and white can make it?"

The fact was so, though the lady's reasoning was not good. The vessel, with armed men in it, was sent by Mr Hope to rescue Lady Carse; and Mrs Ruthven was to act as guide. In consequence of a quarrel between the captain and her, she was set ashore at the place where the little town of Oban has since arisen; and the vessel sailed on out of sight. It was an illegal proceeding of Mr Hope's, and resorted to only when his attempts to obtain a warrant from the proper authority to search for and liberate Lady Carse were frustrated by the influence of her husband and his friends.

"He will be coming! Burn the paper!" cried Lady Carse impatiently, looking from the door.

"Better not. Indeed we had better not," said Annie quietly. "They have no suspicion, or they would not have let us see the paper. They do not know that Mr Hope is your agent; and Mrs Ruthven's name is not mentioned. If we do not return both the papers, there will be suspicion; and you will be carried to Saint Kilda. If we quietly return both papers, the danger may pass."

"O! burn it, and say it was accident. How slow you are!"

"I cannot tell a lie," said Annie. "And the steward would only get another copy of the paper, and look over it carefully,—No, we have only to give him back the papers, and thank him, without agitation."

"I cannot do that," exclaimed Lady Carse. "If you will not tell a lie in such a case, I shall act one. I shall go and pretend to be asleep. I could not contain myself to speak to that man, with my deliverers almost within hearing perhaps, and that detestable Saint Kilda within sight."

She commanded herself so far as to appear asleep, when the steward looked in, on his return. Annie remarked on the news of the rebels, and saw him depart evidently unaware of the weighty nature of what he carried in his pocket.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

OPENINGS.

The autumn of this year is even now held in memory in the island as the dearest ever known. The men were all gone to Inverness, to act under the orders of President Forbes in defending the king's cause; and the women they left behind pined for news which seldom or never came. As the days grew short and dark, there was none of the activity and mirth within doors which in northern climates usually meet the advances of winter. In the cluster of houses about Macdonald's farm, there was dulness and silence in the evenings, and anxious thoughts about fathers, husbands, and brothers, with dread of the daylight which would bring round the perpetual ineffectual watch for a boat on the waters, bearing news of the brave companies of the Macdonalds and Macleods. Sir Alexander remained in Skye, to watch against treason and danger there, while Macleod had gone with the two companies. Such a thing as murmuring against the chief was never heard of; but there were few of the women who did not silently think, now and then, that Sir Alexander might let them have a little more news—might consider their anxiety, and send a messenger when he had tidings from Inverness. This was unjust to Sir Alexander, who was no better off for news than themselves. The rebels were so far successful that messengers could not carry letters with any security by land or sea. It was only by folding his notes so small as to admit of their being hidden in corners of the dress that the President could get them conveyed to the authorities at Edinburgh; and his correspondence with the Government was managed by sending messengers in open boats to Berwick, whence the garrison officer forwarded the despatches to London. In such a state of things, the inhabitants of remote western islands must bear suspense as well as they could.

No one bore it so well as the Widow Fleming. Her only son was in one of the absent companies; she had no other near relation in the world; and she had on her hands a sinking and heart-sick neighbour, whose pains of suspense were added to her own. Yet Annie was the most cheerful person now on the island. When Helsa was fatigued and dispirited by her attendance on Lady Carse, and was sent home for a day's holiday, she always came back with alacrity, saying that after all, the Macdonalds' side of the island was the most dismal of the two. Nobody there cared to sing, whereas Annie would always sing when asked, and often was heard to do so when alone. And she had such a store of tales about the old sea-kings, and the heroes of these islands, and of Scotch history, that some of the younger women came night after night to listen. As they knitted or spun, or let fall their work, while their eyes were fixed on Annie, they forget the troubles of their own time, and the blasts and rains through which they should have to find their way home.

At the end of these evenings, Lady Carse often declared herself growing better; and she then went to sleep on the imagination that she would soon be restored to Edinburgh life by Mr Hope's means, and be happy at last. In the morning, she always declared herself sinking, and fretted over the hardship of dying just when her release was drawing near. Annie thought she was sinking, and never contradicted her when she said so; but yet she tried to bring some of the cheerfulness of the evenings into the morning. She sympathised in the pain of suspense, and of increasing weakness when life was brightening; but she steadily spoke of hope.

She was sincerely convinced that efforts which could not fail were making for Lady Carse's release, and she thought it likely that the mother and children would meet on earth, though it were only to exchange a hope that they might meet in heaven. Sincerely expecting some great and speedy change in the poor lady's fortunes, she could dwell upon the prospect from day to day with a sympathy which did not disappoint even Lady Carse. Every morning she rose with the feeling that great things might happen before night; and every night she assured her eager neighbour that no doubt somebody had been busy on her behalf during the day. Whether Lady Carse owned it to herself or not, this was certainly the least miserable winter she had passed since she had left Edinburgh.

"I am better, I am sure," she joyfully declared one night: "better in every way. How do I look? Tell me how I look."

"Sadly thin; not so as to do justice to the good food the steward sent you," said Annie, cheerfully. "I should like to see these little hands not quite so thin."

"Ah! that is nothing. Everybody is thin and smoke-dried at the end of a stormy winter," declared Lady Carse. "But I feel so much better! You say it is hope; but you see how well I bear suspense."

"I always have thought," said Annie, "that nothing is so good for us all as happiness and peace. Your happiness in hoping to see your children soon, and in obtaining justice, has done you a great deal of good; and I trust there is much more in store yet."

"O yes; and when I get back to my friends again, I shall be happier than I was. We learn some things as we go on in life. I sometimes think that I should in some respects act differently if I had to live my life over again."

"We all feel that," said Annie.

"You know that feeling? Well, there have been some things in myself which I rather wonder at now; some things that I would not do now. I once struck my husband."

"Once!" thought Annie in amazement.

"And I think I may have been too peremptory with the children. There was nobody then to lead me to discover such things as I do when I am with you; and I believe now that if I were at home again—I hope—I think—"

"What will you do if it pleases God to restore you to your home?"

"Why, I have been told that they were afraid of me at home. Heaven knows why! for I should have thought that pompous, heartless, rigid, tyrannical wretch, my husband, was the one to be afraid of; and not a warm-hearted creature like me."

"Perhaps they were afraid of him too."

"O yes, to be sure; and that is why I am here. But they need not have cared for anything I say under an impulse. They might have known that I love people when they do me justice. That, I own, I cannot dispense with. I must have justice. But if people give me my due, I am ready enough to love them."

"And how will you do differently now, if you get home?"

"I think I would be more dignified than I sometimes have been. I would rely more upon myself. I may have encouraged my enemies by letting them see how they could wound my sensitive feelings. I should not have been so ill-treated by the whole world if I had not made some mistake of that kind. I would rely more on myself, and let them see that they could not touch my peace. Would not that be right?"