e."

"Janet!" exclaimed Graeme. "What has happened?"

"Nothing has happened; but I'm no' sure but I ought to have put a stop
to the matter at the very first. I dinna weel ken what to do."

"Janet," said Graeme, speaking with some embarrassment, "my father
thinks it right, and it does not seem so--so strange as it did at
first--and you should speak to Mr Snow about it, at any rate."

"To put him out o' pain," said Janet, smiling grimly. "There's no fear
o' him. But I'll speak to him this very night."

And so she did, and that so kindly, that the deacon, taking heart,
pleaded his own cause, with strong hopes of success. But Janet would
not suffer herself to be entreated. With tearful eyes, she told him of
her fears for Marian, and said, "It would seem like forsaking the bairns
in their trouble, to leave them now." Mr Snow's kind heart was much
shocked at the thought of Marian's danger. She had been his favourite
among the bairns, and Emily's chief friend from the very first, and he
could not urge her going away, now that there was so sorrowful a reason
for her stay.

"So you'll just tell the minister there is to be no more said about it.
He winna ask any questions, I dare say."

But in this Janet was mistaken. He did ask a great many questions, and
failing to obtain satisfactory answers, took the matter into his own
hands, and named an early day for the marriage. In vain Janet protested
and held back. He said she had been thinking of others all her life,
till she had forgotten how to think of herself, and needed some one to
think and decide for her. As to Marian's illness being an excuse, it
was quite the reverse. If she was afraid Marian would not be well cared
for at home, she might take her down the brae; indeed, he feared there
was some danger that he would be forsaken of all his children when she
went away. And then he tried to thank her for her care of his
motherless bairns, and broke down into a silence more eloquent than
words.

"And, my dear friend," said he, after a little, "I shall feel, when I am
to be taken away, I shall not leave my children desolate, while they
have you to care for them."

So for Mrs Nasmyth there was no help. But on one thing she was
determined. The day might be fixed, but it must be sufficiently distant
to permit the coming home of the lads, if they could come. They might
come or not, as it pleased them, but invited they must be. She would
fain see them all at