urs who, at her first coming among them, had been inclined to
resent her gloom and her silence, were ready now, for the sake of her
friendly looks, to forgive the silence which she kept still. Even in
the kirk she was like another woman, they said, and didna seem to be
miles awa', or dreaming, or in fear.

Of this change Allison herself was conscious, when she thought about it.
The minister's words did not seem "just to go by" her as they used to
do. She listened and took her portion with the rest of the folk, and
was moved, or glad, or doubtful, or afraid, as they were, and thought
about all she had heard afterward, as doubtless some of the rest did
also.

She was not desirous now, as she had been at first, for more than her
own turn of staying at home from the kirk. This was partly because
little Marjorie was sometimes able to go there; and when she went she
was carried in Allison's arms, where she rested, sometimes listening to
her father's voice, and sometimes slumbering through the time. But it
was partly, also, because there came now and then a message to Allison
there.

For some of the good words spoken must be for her, she thought, since
the minister said they were for all. Allison was not good at
remembering sermons, or even "heads and particulars," as Robin was. For
a long time she had heard nothing but the minister's voice, and carried
away no word of his, either for correction or instruction. His sermons
were "beyond her," as she said. They meant nothing to her. But now and
then a good word reached her out of the Book; and sometimes a word of
the minister, spoken, as was the way in those days, as a comment on the
psalm that was to be sung, or on the chapter that was read, touched her,
strangely enough, more even than the words of the Book itself, with
which she had been familiar all her life.

One day in early summer she carried her wee Marjorie to the kirk with a
sad heart. For the Sabbath-days were the worst to bear, since she had
least to do, and more time for thinking. All the morning her thoughts
had been with "her Willie," shut in between stone walls, away from the
sunshine and the sweet air, and she was saying to herself: Would the
shame and the misery of it all have changed him, and would he come out,
angry and reckless, a lost laddie? Oh! if she could only go to meet him
at the very door, and if they could get away together over the sea, to
that country so great and wide that they mi