respect, when she saw him
lay aside his broad Scotch bonnet, kneel down under the sheltering wings
of some tree, and pour out all his soul in daily prayers to God. As yet
they had never spoken. What spirit moved her, let lovers tell--was it
all devotion, or was it a touch of unconscious love kindling in her
towards the yellow-haired and thoughtful youth? Or was there a stroke of
mischief, of that teasing, which so often opens up the door to the most
serious step in all our lives? Anyhow, one day she slipped in quietly,
stole away his bonnet, and hung it on a branch near by, while his trance
of devotion made him oblivious of all around; then, from a safe retreat,
she watched and enjoyed his perplexity in seeking for and finding it! A
second day this was repeated; but his manifest disturbance of mind, and
his long pondering with the bonnet in hand, as if almost alarmed, seemed
to touch another chord in her heart--that chord of pity which is so
often the prelude of love, that finer pity that grieves to wound
anything nobler or tenderer than ourselves. Next day, when he came to
his accustomed place of prayer, a little card was pinned against the
tree just where he knelt, and on it these words: "She who stole away
your bonnet is ashamed of what she did; she has a great respect for you,
and asks you to pray for her, that she may become as good a Christian as
you."

Staring long at that writing, he forgot Ralph Erskine for one day!
Taking down the card, and wondering who the writer could be, he was
abusing himself for his stupidity in not suspecting that some one had
discovered his retreat and removed his bonnet, instead of wondering
whether angels had been there during his prayer,--when, suddenly raising
his eyes, he saw in front of old Adam's cottage, though a lane amongst
the trees, the passing of another kind of angel, swinging a milk-pail in
her hand and merrily singing some snatch of old Scottish song. He knew,
in that moment, by a Divine instinct, as infallible as any voice that
ever came to seer of old, that she was the angel visitor that had stolen
in upon his retreat--that bright-faced, clever-witted niece of old Adam
and Eve, to whom he had never yet spoken, but whose praises he had often
heard said and sung--"Wee Jen." I am afraid he did pray "for her," in
more senses than one, that afternoon; at any rate, more than a Scotch
bonnet was very effectually stolen; a good heart and true was there
virtually bestowed, and