is will," repeated Katie,
not knowing what to say.

"God's will! Ay, since He permitted it; we can say nothing else. But
that it should be God's will that yon man should have a name and a place
here--and it may be, hereafter--passes me."

Except to his wife, Mr Fleming had never spoken such words before, and
the pain and anger on his face it was sorrowful to see.

"Grandfather, don't you mind how, at the very last, our Lord said,
`Father, forgive them'?"

He had been sitting, with his face averted from her, but he turned now
with a strange, dazed look in his eyes:

"Ay. And He said, `Love your enemies,' and `Forgive and ye shall be
forgiven.' And Katie, my bonny woman, I canna do it."

Katie slid down to the ground beside him, and laid her wet face on his
knee without a word. What was there to be said, only "God comfort him,
God comfort him?" and she said it many times in the silence that came
next.

By and by the clouds drifted toward the west and hid the sun, and it
seemed to grow dreary and chill around them.

"We'll go to the house to your grandmother," said he at last in a voice
that to Katie seemed hard and strange.

Was he angry with her? Ought she not to have spoken? She dared not ask
him, but she touched his hand with her lips, and wet it with her tears
before she rose. He took no notice, but said again: "We'll go home to
your grandmother;" and no word was spoken till they reached the house,
and then Katie slipped away out of sight, lest her grandmother should
see her tears.

But as the days went on she knew that he was not angry. He was very
grave and silent, and grannie was never quite at rest when he was long
out of sight. But summer wore on, and nothing happened to make one day
different from another till haying-time came.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

A DEMONSTRATION.

Mr Fleming's failing strength, and the high rate of wages paid for farm
labour, had for several years made it necessary for him to depart from
what seemed to him the best mode of farming, in order to save both
strength and wages. So there was a larger part of the place in hay and
pasture-land than there had been at first, a larger proportion than
there ought to be for really good farming on such land as his, he was
willing to acknowledge. Haymaking was, therefore, the most important
part of summer work at Ythan.

There was much to be done, both in the house and in the fields. Several
men were required to help for a mo