up made the cloud on her brow more
visible. For the winter that had been so full of enjoyment to all the
rest had been a time of trial to Janet.

To the young people, the winter had brought numberless pleasures. The
lads had gone to the school, where they were busy and happy, and the
little ones had been busy and happy at home. None had enjoyed the
winter more than Graeme. The change had been altogether beneficial to
Rose; and never since their mother's death had the elder sister been so
much at ease about her. There was little to be done in the way of
making or mending, and, with leisure at her disposal, she was falling
into her old habits of reading and dreaming. She had been busy teaching
the little ones, too, and at night worked with her brothers at their
lessons, so that the winter had been profitable as well as pleasant to
her. At all times in his study, amid the silent friends that had become
so dear to him, Mr Elliott could be content; and in his efforts to
become acquainted with his people, their wants and tastes, he had been
roused to something like the cheerfulness of former years.

But to Janet the winter had been a time of conflict, a long struggle
with unseen enemies; and as she sat there in the dim firelight, she was
telling herself sorrowfully that she would be worsted by them at last.
Home-sickness, blind and unreasoning, had taken possession of her.
Night by night she had lain down with the dull pain gnawing at her
heart. Morning by morning she had risen sick with the inappeasable
yearning for her home, a longing that would not be stilled, to walk
again through familiar scenes, to look again on familiar faces.

The first letters from home, so longed for by all, so welcomed and
rejoiced over by the rest, brought little comfort to her. Arthur's
letters to his father and Graeme, so clear and full of all they wished
to hear about, "so like a printed book," made it all the harder for her
to bear her disappointment over Sandy's obscure, ill-spelt and
indifferently-written letter. She had of old justly prided herself on
Sandy's "hand o' write;" but she had yet to learn the difference between
a school-boy's writing, with a copper-plate setting at the head of the
page, and that which must be the result of a first encounter with the
combined difficulties of writing, spelling and composition.

Poor Sandy! He had laboured hard, doubtless, and had done his best, but
it was not satisfactory. In wishin