about John. When
she went about the house, with no gloom, but only a shadow of softened
sadness on her face, and a look of longing in her eyes, it was of her
brother that she was thinking. She was saying in her heart:

"God help him in that dismal place--he who should be free upon the hills
with the sheep, or following the plough on his ain land at home."

And when a sudden smile came, or a bright glance, or a murmur of song,
she was telling herself that his time was nearly over; that he would
soon be free again to go faraway over the sea, where, with kind help
from Mr Hadden, he would begin a new life, and all would be well with
him once more. Yes, and they might be together again.

But this could not be for a long time. She must not even try to see her
brother. For Brownrig would be sure to have a watch set on him when he
was free. And Brownrig--having the law on his side, as he had said in
the hearing of many, on the night of the dark day on which her father
was buried, raising his voice that she too might hear him, the door
being locked and barred between them--Brownrig would come and she would
be found, and then lost forever.

"For," said Allison to herself, "I should have to drown myself then, and
make an end of it all."

She was standing on the edge of Burney's Pot, near the mill-dam, when
she said this to herself, and she shuddered as she looked down into the
grey water.

"But it will never come to that! Oh! no, mother, it will never come to
that. But to save myself from that man, even to end all would surely be
no sin."

But these thoughts did not haunt and terrify her now, as her doubts and
dreads had done during the winter. She had no time for brooding over
the past. Every hour of the day was more than full with all she had to
do, and there were no long, dark evenings, when she had only her wheel
and her own thoughts for company.

And there was Marjorie. Marjorie had something to do with her thoughts
through all the hours of the day. She was always there to lift or to
lay down, to carry here or to carry there, to speak to or to smile upon.
And she grew sweeter and dearer every day. Above all, the time was
hastening, and Willie would soon be free. That thought made all the
days bright to Allison.

And so she grew, not light-hearted, but reasonable and patient in her
thoughts of all that had befallen them, and, at most times, hopeful as
to all that might lie before them.

The neighbo