spirits, and she wasn't
going to believe it. Elsie was inclined to feel very much like poor old
granny, who thought the world was turning topsy-turvy since her young
days. But although she could not understand it, Elsie had a dim uneasy
feeling that there was too much likelihood of Mrs. Donaldson's words
being true ones for her to disregard them.

She could think of nothing else now but Duncan. If any one hurt him,
whatever should she do? If only they gave her Duncan back again it
seemed as if no trouble would be great.

Mrs. Donaldson's words had brought Elsie to a more reasoning frame of
mind. "I will do everything, if you promise me you will fetch Duncan or
take me back to him," she said eagerly. "You will take care of him,
won't you?" she cried entreatingly. "Promise me nothing bad shall happen
to him. You will send a message about what they are to do to him, won't
you? but oh! I do wish you would let me go back to him before a week. He
will be so frightened and lonely, and perhaps he will call me like he
did in the night when he was frightened; and he's never been with
strange folk before. He's real timid, too, when people are bad to him,
and dursn't say a word, only he's scared like all the time." Elsie could
not help crying at the thought of poor Duncan's terror in Sandy
Ferguson's cottage, and the way he had hidden it till they were away out
of hearing.

Mrs. Donaldson turned away her head uneasily. Something in Elsie's love
for her brother had touched a tender chord. It reminded her of a little
brother she had loved, and who had died. She had been a different
creature in those days, and perhaps for a moment she wished that she
were a child again, with the innocent love for her little brother to
draw her away from a bad, wicked life. Perhaps the recollection of him
made her think for a moment of the life beyond the grave, in which he
was peacefully living, but which could only be a terror for her.

But an angry glance from her companion dispelled the passing softness.
"You shall both be safe so long as you obey me," she said. "Duncan, I
will tell you now, is safe in the hospital. At a word from me Meg will
fetch him away. At present he is well tended, with kind doctors and
nurses to give him everything he wants, and he will soon be well, for it
is only a bad cold he has taken."

Elsie sank back with a sigh of relief. She pictured poor little Duncan
lying on a soft white bed, with kind people bending over h