er easy nor
welcome. Still, I am sure she will be glad to go."

"You have something to tell me about my brother," said Allison.

"Yes, I have much to tell you--and nothing but good."

"I was thankful when I heard that he was to go back again to Mr
Strong's house. It has been like home to him a long time. Did he send
a letter to me?"

"Yes--but it is a very little one. I am to tell you all the news," said
John, taking from his pocketbook a tiny, folded paper. Allison opened
it and read:

"Dear Allie, it was all a mistake; it was me she cared for all the time.
Oh! Allie, you must love her dearly for my sake."

It seemed to take Allison a good while to read it, short as it was.
When at last she looked up and met John's eyes, a sudden rush of colour
made her hide her face in her hands.

"Don't be sorry, Allie; you would not if you knew all," said John.

"Oh! no. It is not that I am sorry. But--he will not need me now. Oh!
I am not sorry. I am glad for him." But her voice trembled as she
said it.

"Will he not need his sister? You would not say so if you knew what the
thought of you has been to him all these years. You have not seen your
brother for a long time, but it is you who have made a man of him, for
all that."

"Have I made a man of him? It has been with your good help then."

"Yes, I think I may have helped him. We have been friends, and more,
ever since we met that night by the lake shore."

"Ah! he needed a friend then. I seemed to forget my fears for him,
after I heard that you had found him. I do not know how to thank you
for all you have been to him."

"I will tell you how," said John. But he did not. He rose and walked
up and down again. After a little he sat down beside her, and had more
to say. He spoke of his first meeting with her brother, of Willie's
illness, and of the good fortune that came to them both on the day when
they took shelter from the rain in Mr Strong's barn. He told her much
more than that. Some things she had heard before, and some things she
heard now for the first time. She listened to all with a lightened
heart, and more than once the happy tears came to her eyes. And when
John ended thus, "You will be proud of your brother yet, Allison," she
put out her hand, and John took it, and, for a moment, held it closely.

Before Allison came in John had said to Robert:

"You are not to go away; I have nothing to say to Allison Bain to-night
that all N