an' the ane 's a'."

When Donal reached the castle, he found his breakfast and Mrs. Brookes
waiting for him. She told him that Eppy, meeting her in the passage the
night before, had burst into tears, but she could get nothing out of
her, and had sent her to her room; this morning she had not come down
at the proper time, and when she sent after her, did not come: she went
up herself, and found her determined to leave the castle that very day;
she was now packing her things to go, nor did she see any good in
trying to prevent her.

Donal said if she would go home, there was plenty for her to do there;
old people's bones were not easy to mend, and it would be some time
before her grandfather was well again!

Mrs. Brookes said she would not keep her now if she begged to stay; she
was afraid she would come to grief, and would rather she went home; she
would take her home herself.

"The lass is no an ill ane," she added: "but she disna ken what she wud
be at. She wants some o' the Lord's ain discipleen, I'm thinkin!"

"An' that ye may be sure she'll get, mistress Brookes!" said Donal.

Eppy was quite ready to go home and help nurse her grandfather. She
thought her conduct must by this time be the talk of the castle, and
was in mortal terror of lord Morven. All the domestics feared him--it
would be hard to say precisely why; it came in part of seeing him so
seldom that he had almost come to represent the ghost some said lived
in the invisible room and haunted the castle.

It was the easier for Eppy to go home that her grandmother needed her,
and that her grandfather would not be able to say much to her. She was
an affectionate girl, and yet her grandfather's condition roused in her
no indignation; for the love of being loved is such a blinding thing,
that the greatest injustice from the dearest to the next dearest will
by some natures be readily tolerated. God help us! we are a mean
set--and meanest the man who is ablest to justify himself!

Mrs. Brookes, having prepared a heavy basket of good things for Eppy to
carry home to her grandmother, and made it the heavier for the sake of
punishing her with the weight of it, set out with her, saying to
herself,

"The jaud wants a wheen harder wark nor I hae hauden till her han', an'
doobtless it's preparin' for her!"

She was kindly received, without a word of reproach, by her
grandmother; the sufferer, forgetful of, or forgiving her words of
rejection in the garden, smi