lose to her
breast.

"She's one of the fair ones," she said, kissing and patting me. "She
will come again. She'll come often, I dare say. But she's gone now and
we must go, too. Get up, Angus, man. We're for the castle."

If we three had been different--if we had ever had the habit of talking
and asking questions--we might surely have asked one another questions
as I rode on Sheltie's back, with Angus leading us. But they asked
me nothing, and I said very little except that I once spoke of the
wild-looking horsemen and their pale, joyous faces.

"They were glad," was all I said.

There was also one brief query from Angus.

"Did she talk to you, bairnie?" he said.

I hesitated and stared at him quite a long time. Then I shook my head
and answered, slowly, "N-no."

Because I realized then, for the first time, that we had said no words
at all. But I had known what she wanted me to understand, and she had
known what I might have said to her if I had spoken--and no words were
needed. And it was better.

They took me home to the castle, and I was given my supper and put to
bed. Jean sat by me until I fell asleep; she was obliged to sit rather a
long time, because I was so happy with my memories of Wee Brown Elspeth
and the certainty that she would come again. It was not Jean's words
which had made me sure. I knew.

She came many times. Through all my childish years I knew that she
would come and play with me every few days--though I never saw the wild
troopers again or the big, lean man with the scar. Children who play
together are not very curious about one another, and I simply accepted
her with delight. Somehow I knew that she lived happily in a place not
far away. She could come and go, it seemed, without trouble. Sometimes
I found her--or she found me upon the moor; and often she appeared in
my nursery in the castle. When we were together Jean Braidfute seemed to
prefer that we should be alone, and was inclined to keep the under-nurse
occupied in other parts of the wing I lived in. I never asked her to do
this, but I was glad that it was done. Wee Elspeth was glad, too. After
our first meeting she was dressed in soft blue or white, and the red
stain was gone; but she was always Wee Brown Elspeth with the doelike
eyes and the fair, transparent face, the very fair little face. As I had
noticed the strange, clear pallor of the rough troopers, so I noticed
that she was curiously fair. And as I occasionally saw oth