ht happen before night; and every night she assured her eager
neighbour that no doubt somebody had been busy on her behalf during the
day. Whether Lady Carse owned it to herself or not, this was certainly
the least miserable winter she had passed since she had left Edinburgh.

"I am better, I am sure," she joyfully declared one night: "better in
every way. How do I look? Tell me how I look."

"Sadly thin; not so as to do justice to the good food the steward sent
you," said Annie, cheerfully. "I should like to see these little hands
not quite so thin."

"Ah! that is nothing. Everybody is thin and smoke-dried at the end of a
stormy winter," declared Lady Carse. "But I feel so much better! You
say it is hope; but you see how well I bear suspense."

"I always have thought," said Annie, "that nothing is so good for us all
as happiness and peace. Your happiness in hoping to see your children
soon, and in obtaining justice, has done you a great deal of good; and I
trust there is much more in store yet."

"O yes; and when I get back to my friends again, I shall be happier than
I was. We learn some things as we go on in life. I sometimes think
that I should in some respects act differently if I had to live my life
over again."

"We all feel that," said Annie.

"You know that feeling? Well, there have been some things in myself
which I rather wonder at now; some things that I would not do now. I
once struck my husband."

"Once!" thought Annie in amazement.

"And I think I may have been too peremptory with the children. There
was nobody then to lead me to discover such things as I do when I am
with you; and I believe now that if I were at home again--I hope--I
think--"

"What will you do if it pleases God to restore you to your home?"

"Why, I _have_ been told that they were afraid of me at home. Heaven
knows why! for I should have thought that pompous, heartless, rigid,
tyrannical wretch, my husband, was the one to be afraid of; and not a
warm-hearted creature like me."

"Perhaps they were afraid of him too."

"O yes, to be sure; and that is why I am here. But they need not have
cared for anything I say under an impulse. They might have known that I
love people when they do me justice. That, I own, I cannot dispense
with. I must have justice. But if people give me my due, I am ready
enough to love them."

"And how will you do differently now, if you get home?"

"I think I would be more dignif