ait. Oh! yes, I can wait."

Allison held out her hand, and John knew it was time to go.

"I havena thanked you yet, but--"

"You have nothing to thank me for yet. If I only could do something for
you!"

"You have done this. You have told me he is free and at his own home.
I have all the summer days grudged myself the sweetness of the light and
the air, because I thought of him sitting in the darkness. And he has
had it all, and now he may be on the sea! It has happened well, and I
take it for a sign that the Lord is on our side."

"And you will not be troubled and anxious any more?"

"I will have hope now. And I thank you in my heart though I havena the
words ready."

And then John went away.

Allison sat in the kirk that day a happy woman. Every one there must
have noticed the change in her looks, only she sat in the end of the
seat near the door, and the little porch hid her from a good many of the
folk, and the side of her big bonnet was mostly turned toward the rest.
Little Marjorie saw her happy look, and raised herself up to ask her
what she was thinking about that made her look so glad. Allison was
thinking that her Willie might be sitting in the kirk at home listening
to Dr Hadden's kind, familiar voice, and that in the afternoon he might
be walking over his own land with Uncle Sandy, to see the sheep and get
the air of the hills. She bowed her head and whispered softly, "Whisht,
my lammie"; but she "smiled with her een," as Marjorie told her mother
afterward, and the child was content.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"Into the restful pause there came
A voice of warning, or of blame,
Which uttered a beloved name."

More than once since she had first seen her, Mrs Esselmont had asked,
"Who is Allison Bain?"

Mrs Hume had not much to tell her. Of her family and friends she knew
absolutely nothing. Of Allison herself she knew only what she had seen
since she became an inmate of the manse, except that she had been Dr
Fleming's patient in the infirmary, and afterward for a short time a
nurse there. Dr Fleming probably knew more of her history than he had
told to them.

"A good woman who had seen sorrow, he called her, and a good woman she
is in every way, and a good servant, now that she seems to be growing
content and cheerful. I own that she was a weight upon my mind at
first. She is faithful, patient, true. Her only fault seems to be her
reserve--if it can be called a fault to keep