ou would not care to come there with me?"

"No the nicht, sir. Come to my room again, an' I s' mak ye a cup o'
coffee, an' tell ye the story--it's a' come back to me noo--the thing
'at made my aunt tell me aboot the buildin' o' this wa'. 'Deed, sir, I
hae hardly a doobt the thing was jist as ye say!"

They went to her room: there was lady Arctura sitting by the fire!

"My lady!" cried the housekeeper. "I thoucht I left ye soon' asleep!"

"So I was, I daresay," answered Arctura; "but I woke again, and finding
you had not come up, I thought I would go down to you. I was certain
you and Mr. Grant would be somewhere together! Have you been
discovering anything more?"

Mrs. Brookes gave Donal a look: he left her to tell as much or as
little as she pleased.

"We hae been prowlin' aboot the hoose, but no doon yon'er, my lady. I
think you an' me wad do weel to lea' that to Mr. Grant!"

"When your ladyship is quite ready to have everything set to rights,"
said Donal, "and to have a resurrection of the chapel, then I shall be
glad to go with you again. But I would rather not even talk more about
it just at present."

"As you please, Mr. Grant," replied lady Arctura. "We will say nothing
more till I have made up my mind. I don't want to vex my uncle, and I
find the question rather a difficult one--and the more difficult that
he is worse than usual.--Will you not come to bed now, mistress
Brookes?"

CHAPTER LXIV.

THE GARLAND-ROOM.

All through the terrible time, the sense of help and comfort and
protection in the presence of the young tutor, went on growing in the
mind of Arctura. It was nothing to her--what could it be?--that he was
the son of a very humble pair; that he had been a shepherd, and a
cow-herd, and a farm labourer--less than nothing. She never thought of
the facts of his life except sympathetically, seeking to enter into the
feelings of his memorial childhood and youth; she would never have
known anything of those facts but for their lovely intimacies of all
sorts with Nature--nature divine, human, animal, cosmical. By sharing
with her his emotional history, Donal had made its facts precious to
her; through them he had gathered his best--by home and by prayer, by
mother and father, by sheep and mountains and wind and sky. And now he
was to her a tower of strength, a refuge, a strong city, the shadow of
a great rock in a weary land. She trusted him the more that he never
invited her trust--never pu