be herself again, she said, and her friends said so also. They did
not know that Doctor Fleming had, at this time, some anxiety about her.
He remembered the first days of his acquaintance with her, and the dull
despair into which she had fallen, before he sent her to Nethermuir, and
he would not have been surprised if, after the long strain upon mind and
body through which she had passed, the same suffering had fallen upon
her again. Therefore it was that he used both his authority as a
physician and his influence as a friend, to prevent any allusion to
business matters; and though he was guarded in all that he said to Mr
Rainy on the subject, he yet said enough to show him the propriety of
letting all things remain as they were, for a time.

So Allison was left at peace,--in the quiet little house which she was
beginning to call her home. She had been asked, and even entreated by
Mrs Hume, to come to the manse for a while. Mrs Beaton had written to
say how glad it would make her if Allison would come to her for a week
or two. But remembering the misery of her first months in Nethermuir,
Allison hesitated at first, and then refused them both. She was better
where she was, she said, and in a few days she would be ready for her
work again.

She did not say it to them, and she hardly confessed it to herself, but
she shrank from the thought of the eyes that would be looking at her,
and the tongues that would be discussing her, now that her secret was
known. For of course it could not be kept. All her small world would
know how who she was, and why she had come to take refuge in the manse.
They would think well of her, or ill of her, according to their natures,
but that would not trouble her if she were not there to hear and see.
So she stayed where she was, and as she could not do what she would have
liked best, she made up her mind to go back to the infirmary again.

She would have liked best to go away at once to her brother in America,
and some of her friends were inclined to wonder that she did not do so.
But Allison had her reasons, some of which she was not prepared to
discuss with any one,--which indeed she did not like to dwell upon
herself. She had been asked to come to the home of the Haddens to stay
there till her brother was ready for her. When she was stronger and
surer of herself, she would accept their kind invitation, and then she
would go to Willie--it did not matter where. East or West, far or