"Very," Annie agreed; "but less of a liberty than some would have taken,
if I had left it to tempt them. I threw away only what is some man's
unlawful property. Others would have thrown away that which belongs to
God, and is very precious in His eyes--the human reason, which he has
made but a little lower than the glory of the angels."

Lady Carse spoke no more--not even when they reached their own doors.
Whether she was moody or conscience-stricken, Annie could not tell. All
the more anxious was she to do her part; and she went in to pray that
the suffering lady might be saved from this new peril--the most fearful
of the snares of her most perilous life. Annie did not forget to pray
that those who had driven the sufferer to such an extremity as that she
could not resist even this means of forgetting her woes, might be struck
with such a sense of their cruelty as to save their victim before it was
too late.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

HELSA'S NEWS.

One day when Annie was trimming her lamp, she observed Helsa, Lady
Carse's maid, watching the process earnestly from the door, where she
was looking in. "Come in, Helsa," said the widow, in Gaelic, which was
more familiar to the girl than English. "Come in, if you have nothing
better to do than to see me trim my lamp."

"I am afraid about that lamp, and that is the truth," replied Helsa. "I
had charge of a lamp at Macdonald's once, when my mother went to the
main for a week; but then, if it went out, nobody was much the worse.
If this one goes out, and anybody drowns in the harbour, and the blame
is mine, what shall I do?"

"The blame yours!" said the widow, looking at her.

"Yes; when you live at Macdonald's, and I have to keep the lamp. I am
not sure that I can keep awake all the night when winter comes: but they
say I must."

Helsa was surprised to find that the widow knew nothing of the plan that
Lady Carse now talked of more than anything else: that Annie was to go
and live at Macdonald's, that Lady Carse and her maid might have the
widow's house, where Helsa was to do all the work in the day, and to
keep the lamp at night. The girl declared that the family never sat at
meals without talking of the approaching time when they could all have
more room and do whatever they pleased. Adam had cried yesterday about
the widow going away; but he had been forbidden to cry about what would
make Lady Carse so much happier; and when Kate had whispered to him that