Mrs. Duncan was quite in her element--petting her guest, and ordering
Jean about; for she was a brisk, bustling little woman, and far more
active than her three-score and ten years warranted.

It was a delight to her motherly nature to dress and undress Fay's
bonny boy. She would prose for hours about Robbie and Elsie as she sat
beside the homely cradle that had once held her own children, while
Fay listened languidly. It was all she could do to lie there and sleep
and eat. Perhaps it was bodily exhaustion, but a sort of lull had come
to her. She ceased to fret, and only wondered dreamily if Hugh were
very pleased to get rid of her, and what he was doing, and who dusted
and arranged his papers for him now she was no longer there. But of
course Mrs. Heron would see to that.

Jean had plenty of work on her hands, but she never grumbled. There
was the baby's washing and extra cooking, and the care of her old
master. But in spite of her hard work, she often contrived to find her
way to the pink room; for Jean worshiped babies, and it was a proud
moment when she could get the boy in her arms and carry him out for a
breath of air.

Mrs. Duncan told Fay that she had had great difficulty in making her
husband understand the facts of the case. "His brain was just a wee
bit clouded to every-day matters," she said; but he knew that he had
guests at the Manse, and had charged his wife to show every
hospitality.

"There is a deal said about the virtue of hospitality in the Bible,"
he continued. "There was Abraham and the fatted calf; and the good
widows in the apostles' time who washed the feet of strangers; and
some have entertained angels unaware; and it shall never be said of
us, Jeanie woman, that we turned anybody from the Manse."

Fay went to see the old man when she was strong enough to leave her
room, which was not for a fortnight after her arrival.

She found him lying on one side of the big bed with brown moreen
hangings that she remembered so well, with his white head pillowed
high, and his fine old face turned to the setting sun.

He looked at her with a placid smile as she stood beside him--a small
girlish figure, now sadly frail and drooping, with her boy in her
arms--and held out his left hand--the right arm was helpless.

"Mother and child," he murmured; "it is always before our eyes, the
Divine picture; and old and young, it touches the manhood within us.
So you have come to bide a wee with Jeanie and me i