ew months of her pilgrimage Jess
was left alone. Yet I may not say that she was alone. Jamie, who
should have been with her, was undergoing his own ordeal far away;
where, we did not now even know. But though the poorhouse stands in
Thrums, where all may see it, the neighbours did not think only of
themselves.

Than Thomas Haggart there can scarcely have been a poorer man, but
Tammas was the first to come forward with offer of help. To the day of
Jess's death he did not once fail to carry her water to her in the
morning, and the luxuriously living men of Thrums in those present days
of pumps at every corner, can hardly realize what that meant. Often
there were lines of people at the well by three o'clock in the morning,
and each had to wait his turn. Tammas filled his own pitcher and pan,
and then had to take his place at the end of the line with Jess's
pitcher and pan, to wait his turn again. His own house was in the
Tenements, far from the brae in winter time, but he always said to Jess
it was "naething ava."

Every Saturday old Robbie Angus sent a bag of sticks and shavings from
the saw-mill by his little son Rob, who was afterwards to become a man
for speaking about at nights. Of all the friends that Jess and Hendry
had, T'nowhead was the ablest to help, and the sweetest memory I have
of the farmer and his wife is the delicate way they offered it. You
who read will see Jess wince at the offer of charity. But the poor
have fine feelings beneath the grime, as you will discover if you care
to look for them, and when Jess said she would bake if any one would
buy, you would wonder to hear how many kindly folk came to her door for
scones.

She had the house to herself at nights, but Tibbie Birse was with her
early in the morning, and other neighbours dropped in. Not for long
did she have to wait the summons to the better home.

"Na," she said to the minister, who has told me that he was a better
man from knowing her, "my thochts is no nane set on the vanities o' the
world noo. I kenra hoo I could ever hae ha'en sic an ambeetion to hae
thae stuff-bottomed chairs."

I have tried to keep away from Jamie, whom the neighbours sometimes
upbraided in her presence. It is of him you who read would like to
hear, and I cannot pretend that Jess did not sit at her window looking
for him.

"Even when she was bakin'," Tibbie told me, "she aye had an eye on the
brae. If Jamie had come at ony time when it was licht s