Shenac. "I only hope it will be fair
to-morrow, so that I can get to help him. I could mow as well as he, if
my mother would let me. However, it's all the same whether I help him
or he helps me, so that the work is done some way."

"We'll all help one another," said Hamish. "Shenac, you were right the
other day when you told me I was wrong to murmur because I could not do
more than God had given me strength to do. It does not matter what work
falls to each of us, so that it is well done; and we can never do it
unless we keep together."

"No fear, Hamish, bhodach, we'll keep together," said Shenac heartily.
"I do hope to-morrow may be fine."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

But to-morrow was not fine; it was quite the contrary. Shenac milked in
the rain, and gathered vegetables for dinner in the rain, and would
gladly have made hay all day in the rain, if that had been possible.
Not a pin cared Shenac for the rain. It wet her face, and twined her
hair into numberless little rings all over her head, and that was the
very worst it could do. It could not spoil her shoes, for in summer she
did not wear any, unless she was in the field; and it took the rain a
long time to penetrate through the thick woollen dress she always wore
in rainy weather. Indeed, she rather liked to be out in the rain,
especially when there was a high wind, against which she might measure
her strength; and she was just going to propose to her mother that she
should set out to The Eleventh for the dye-stuffs, when the door opened,
and her cousin Shenac came in.

Rain or shine, Shenac Dhu was always welcome, and quite a chorus of
exclamations greeted her.

"Toch! what about the rain! I'm neither salt nor sugar to melt in it,"
she said, as Shenac Bhan took off her wet plaid and drew her towards the
fire. "I must not stay," she continued.--"Hamish, have you done with
your book? Mr Rugg stayed at our house last night, and he's coming
here next, and so I ran over the field to see his pretty things.--O
Shenac, he has such a pretty print this time--blue and white."

"But could you not see his pretty things last night? And are you to get
a dress of the blue and white?" asked Shenac Bhan.

"Of course I could see them, but I could not take a good look at them
because my father was there. He thinks me a sensible woman, and I can't
bear to undeceive him; and my eyes have a trick of looking at pretty
things as though I wanted them, and that looks greedy.