ay with her, Margaret--a way of saying, "Will
you tell me?" and then of repeating it, and she started now.

"Hamish," said she, "will you tell me one thing? Will you tell me?"

I nodded.

"Would it be--will you tell me--truly?" and she waited for my assent.

"Would it be Helen the boys were fighting over?"

"It would not," said I, and she said nothing more after that; but as I
took her to the door she pulled my head down.

"I am thinking often, Hamish," said she, "you are the best one of us
all."

* * * * * *

Now I will say this--that Bryde was like a wean in bed, fretful and
ill-natured and restless, and his mother had to be beside him when folk
came in, and I think in his new knowledge he feared she might suffer
some indignity.

And he lashed his pride with a new-found humbleness, and railed at
himself. I can hear his words on that day I brought Margaret to be
seeing him, and she had many dainty dishes to be describing.

"It is very kind of you indeed," said he, "to be minding a poor body
like me, and kind of your people to be allowing you to visit my mother
and myself."

And at the sound of these words the poor lass was red and white time
about, and at last fell all aback like a little ship in the wind's eye.

"Oh, Bryde," cried she, "what is this talk of my people? Are not my
people your own people also?"

"I have my mother's word for it," said he, with his arm over his eyes,
and the dark blood surging upwards over throat and cheeks.

The lass was on her knees by his bedside at that.

"Do you think," she cried--"do you think _that_ would weigh with me; I
have kent that long syne."

"It was news to me," said he, turning his face away; "bonny news to me."

"This will be news to me also," said she, her face hidden, "for I would
be thinking in the night-time--in the dark--I would be thinking it
would maybe be _me_ you differed over.

"You, Mistress Margaret," cried he. "What could I ever be to such as
you--but a servant?"

"Bryde McBride, do you ken what there is in my heart to be doing to
you," and her eyes were all alight, and her breath coming fast--her
face close to his and her arms round him: "I could be kissing your hurt
till it was healed. I am wanting your head _here_, here at my heart,
for I am yours--I will be yours--I will be yours."

"Some day," said Bryde in a soft whisper, with amazement in his
tones--"some day you will find a man worthy of tha