k' it out. Eh! but ye're a braw lad,
and a weelfaured," added she, holding up the lamp and peering into his
face. "And muckle gude be wi' ye a' ye're days," she added as they went
away.

"You have never told me of all the help she gave you," said John as they
went down the burn side together.

"Sometime I will tell you; I would fain forget it all just now."

The next day they went to Grassie, to see the two or three with whom
Allison could claim kindred in the countryside. She had seen them last
on her father's burial-day. Then they went to many a spot where in
their happy childhood Allison and her brother used to play together.
John had heard of some of these before, he said. He knew the spot at
the edge of the moor, where young Alex. Hadden had rescued Willie from
the jaws of death, and he recognised the clump of dark old firs, where
the hoodie-crows used to take counsel together, and the lithe nook where
the two bairns were wont to shelter from the east wind or the rain. And
he reminded Allison of things which she had herself forgotten. At some
of them she wept, and at others she laughed, joyful to think that her
brother should remember them so well. And she too had some things to
tell, and some sweet words to say, in the gladness of her heart, which
John might never have heard but for their walk over the hills that day.

They went to the kirk on the Sabbath, and sat, not in the minister's
pew, but in the very seat where Allison used to sit with her father and
her mother and Willie before trouble came. And when the silence was
broken by the minister's voice saying: "Oh! Thou who art mighty to
save!" did not her heart respond joyfully to the words? The tears rose
as she bowed her head, but her heart was glad as she listened to the
good words spoken. When they came out into the kirkyard, where, one by
one, at first, and afterward by twos and threes, the folk who had known
her all her life came up to greet her, there were neither tears nor
smiles on her face, but a look at once gentle, and firm, and grave--the
look of a strong, patient, self-respecting woman, who had passed through
the darkness of suffering and sorrow into the light at last.

John stood a little apart, watching and waiting for her, and in his
heart he was saying, "May I grow worthy of her and of her love." When
there had been "quite enough of it," as he thought, and he was about to
put an end to it, there drew near, doubtful, yet eager