btless get it if you seek it
in a right spirit." But, judging from Mrs Stirling's melancholy tones
and shakings of the head, it was plain to see that she expected there
would be failure somewhere.

With keen eyes she watched for some symptoms of the spoiling process in
Lilias, and was slow to believe that she was not going to be
disappointed in her, as she had been in so many others. But time went
on, and Lilias passed unscathed through what, in Nancy's estimation, was
the severest of all ordeals. She was sent to a school "to learn
accomplishments," and came home again, after two years, "not a bit set
up." So Mrs Stirling came to feel at last that she might have faith in
the stability of her young favourite.

"She's just the very same Lilias Elder that used to teach the bairns and
go wandering over the hills with her brother; only she's blither and
bonnier. She's Miss Elder of the Glen now, as I heard young Mr Graham
calling her to his friend; but she's no' to call changed for all that."

And Mrs Stirling was right. Lilias was not changed. Prosperity did no
unkind office for her. Those happy days developed in her no germ of
selfishness. Still her first thought was for others, the first desire
of her heart still was to know what was right, and to obtain grace and
strength to do it. In some respects she might be changed, but in this
she was the very same.

She grew taller and wore a brighter bloom on her cheeks, and she
gradually outgrew the look that was older than her years; but she never
lost the gentle gravity that had made her seem so different from the
other children in the eyes of those who knew her in her time of many
cares.

Nancy had not the same confidence in Archie. Not that she could find
much fault with him; but he had never been so great a favourite with her
as his sister, and his boyish indifference to her praise or blame did
not, in her opinion, accord with the possession of much sense or
discretion.

"And, Miss Lilias, my dear, it's no' good for a laddie like him to be
made so much of," said she. "The most of the lads that I have seen put
first and cared for most have, in one way or another, turned out a
disappointment. Either they turned wilful, and went their own way to no
good; or they turned soft, and were a vexation. And it would be a
grievous thing indeed if the staff on which you lean should be made a
rod to correct you, my dear."

But Lilias feared no disappointment in her