at forbade questions. But Marcella lay awake worrying
very late during her last few nights at the farm, picturing her aunt all
alone, without Jean, without her, without even the beasts, for a butcher
from Carlossie had come and slaughtered the last old tottery cow,
Hoodie.

"What is she going to do?" the girl asked herself again and again as
she tossed on her hard bed that night. She tried to imagine Aunt Janet
bringing in wood for the fire, breaking the ice of the well in winter,
cleaning and cooking as Jean did, and her imagination simply would not
stretch so far. Then she saw the nights when she would sit in the big
book-room with the ghosts walking about the draughty passages, up and
down through the green baize door, looking for their swords and dirks,
the beds and tables and chairs that had been sold while the rats
scuttered about the wainscoting. And she got a terrible vision of her
aunt looking round furtively as her hand went behind the curtain to a
paper bag of cheap sweets.

"Oh, I can't leave her!" she cried. "Poor Aunt Janet!"

But even as her lips told her she could not go, her feet tingled like
the swallows' wings in September and knew that, whoever suffered for
it, she would have to go.

Ghosts and shadows crowded round her next day when she ran down to the
beach to say good-bye to Wullie. On the gate of the farm was fixed a
notice saying that Miss Lashcairn desired the villagers to come to the
house next day if they wished a free joint of beef, as she had no
further use for her cattle. "As the beast in question is old," went on
the firm, precise writing, "the meat will be tough. But probably it is
quite worth consideration by those with large families."

Marcella was crying as she banged open the door of Wullie's hut.

"I thought ye'd be coming, Marcella," he said, looking at her with
mournful brown eyes that recalled Hoodie's. "Jock's wife's made ye a
seed cake to eat the day, and anither tae pack in yer grip. She says if
ye'll pit it intill a bit tin an' fasten it doon tight it'll maybe keep
till ye're at Australia. But I'm thenkin' she doesna rightly ken whaur
Australia is on the map."

"Oh, Wullie," cried Marcella, flinging herself down on the ground beside
him. "I feel as if I can't bear it all. Hoodie killed, and going to be
eaten, Jean going to Perth to live, and Aunt Janet all alone in the old
farm, living with the rats."

"Ye're awa' yersel', Marcella, mind," said Wullie gravely.

"W