ietly, and when she
said good-night, the minister's wife kissed and blessed her with a full
heart.

Strangely enough, Allison fell asleep as soon as her head touched the
pillow. The dawn found her up, and ready for the long walk to the point
where she was to take the mail-coach to Aberdeen. It cannot be said
that she had no misgivings, no faintness of heart, as she turned on the
hilltop, and looked back on the house which had been first her refuge,
and then her home for so long. For even when she was faraway from
Nethermuir, and from Scotland, it was to the manse her thoughts turned
as home.

"Shall I ever see it again?" she asked herself, sadly. "And how will it
be with me then?"

But her courage did not fail her. She remembered distinctly, or rather,
she saw clearly the forlorn creature, who on that drear November day,
nearly three years ago, stood looking down on the little town.

"Poor soul!" said she pitifully, as if it had been some one else who
stood helpless and fearful there. "Ay! poor soul! But was she not well
welcomed, and mercifully dealt with there, till she came to herself
again? And has not goodness and mercy followed her all her days since
then? Why should I be so sore afraid?"

And so on the strength of that she went peacefully, till she came to the
place where she was to take the coach, for which she had to wait a
while. When she was seated in it she was sorry that she had not sent on
her bundle with it, and walked the rest of the way. For the ceaseless
droning talk of two old men, who sat beside her, wearied her, and the
oaths and bluster of two younger men, who came in later, made her angry
and afraid. And altogether she was very tired, and not so courageous as
she had been in the morning, when she was set down at the door of the
house where Robert lived when his classes were going on. It was better
to go there where she was known, than to seek to hide herself among
strangers. And why should she hide herself? She had nothing to fear
now.

Ah! had she nothing to fear? What might be waiting her in the future?
A life which she might loathe perhaps--

"But I must not look beyond this night, or how can I go on? I am trying
to do God's will. I am not seeking my own. And surely, His will is
best."

But she did not say it joyfully, or even hopefully now, and she had a
bad half-hour before the darkness fell, and she could go out unseen.
She had another while she waited to see Dr