milking she sang with full voice once more the old
song which Daisy loved. Of late her voice had been very low, and the
song scarcely reached beyond Daisy's sleek sides, but to-day it came
back, and the farmyard was filled with happy melody.

Everything went on as usual in the farm. Ann tried to let no
difference be seen in her manner to her father, unless indeed she was a
little more tender and loving. The farm servants, who, if they had not
been at the Sciet, had yet heard the tale of disgrace, were unanimous
in their endeavours to comfort the old mishteer whom they loved with so
much loyalty.

"Pwr fellow bach!" they said to each other, "'twas for his son after
all, and if he had kept it to himself nobody would have known anything
about it!"

He alone was altered, going about with a saddened mien and gentler
voice than of old, and apparently finding his chief solace in the
company of his little grandson, who followed him about as closely and
untiringly as Tudor did.

"Ah, we are brave companions, aren't we, Gwil?" he would sometimes ask
with a tremble in his voice.

"Odin (Yes, we are)," said the child.

"And thou lov'st thine old grandfather with all thine heart, eh?"

"Odw (Yes, I do!)," said the child, impatient to be gone.

They were sitting under the elder tree in the farmyard.

"Stop a minute," said the old man, in a husky, anxious voice, "if da-cu
(grandfather) had done anything wrong, wouldst love him still the same?"

"Oh, more!" said the boy, "because then we'd be two naughty boys!"

And while they sat under the elder tree, and Morva helped Ann with her
churning, five miles away, on the wind-swept high road, a bent figure
was trudging along, with slow but steady footsteps, with the thought of
them all in her mind, and the sweet memory of home in her heart, but
with an earnest purpose in her eyes; to bring happiness and hope to her
old friend, to the man who in the days gone by had jilted her, and torn
her heart strings, who had won her love, but had married another woman,
and regretted it ever after.

It was Sara, who had risen with the first streak of dawn, and snatching
a hurried breakfast had left her foster-daughter asleep. She had
lifted the lid of the coffer and had taken out the best half of her
scarlet mantle, leaving the worn and faded half hanging Over the
spinning wheel. "Morva would understand," she thought, "and would wash
it and lay it away in the coffer until her return."