r, and safely; and
there they sat on the ground, the two, locked in each other's
arms,--Donald's beard gone, and much of his hair; Elspie's pretty golden
hair also blackened, burned. It was the first thing Donald saw after he
made sure danger was past. Laying his hand on her head, he said, with a
half-sob,--he was hysterical now there was nothing more to be done: "Oh,
your bonny hair, my darlin'! It's all scorched away."

"It'll grow!" said Elspie, looking up in his eyes archly. Her head was
on his shoulder, and she nestled closer; then she burst into tears and
laughter together, crying: "Oh, Donald, it was for you I was callin'.
Did ye hear me? I said to myself when the fire took hold, 'O God, send
Donald to save me!'"

"An' he sent me, my darlin'," answered Donald. "Ye are my own darlin';
say it, Elspie, say it!" he continued. "Oh, ye bonny bairn, but I've
loved ye like death since the first day I set eyes on your bonny face!
Say ye're my darlin'!"

But he knew it without her saying a word; and the whispered "Yes,
Donald, I'm your darlin' if you want me," did not make him any surer.

There was a great outcrying and trembling of hearts at the farm-house
when Donald and Elspie appeared in this sorry plight of torn and burned
clothes, blackened faces, scorched and singed hair. But thankfulness
soon swept away all other emotions,--thankfulness and a great joy, too;
for Donald's second word was, turning to the old father: "An' it is my
own that I've saved; she's gien hersel' to me for all time, an' we'll
ask for your blessin' on us without any waitin'!" Tears filled the
mother's eyes. She thought of another daughter. A dire instinct smote
her of woe to Katie.

"Ay, Donald," she said, "it's a good day to us to see ye enter the
house as a son; but I never thought o'--" She stopped.

Donald's quick consciousness imagined part of what she had on her mind.
"No," he said, half sad in the midst of his joy, "o' course ye didn't;
an' I wonder at mysel'. It's like winter weddin' wi' spring, ye'll be
sayin'. But I'll keep young for her sake. Ye'll see she's no old man for
a husband. There's nothing in a' the world I'll not do for the bairn.
It's no light love I bear her."

"Ye'll be tellin' Katie on the morrow?" said the unconscious Elspie.

"Ay, ay," replied the equally unconscious Donald; "an' she'll be main
glad o' 't. It's a hundred times in the summer that she's been sayin'
how she longed to have you in the town wi' her