ainted with the shock of this intelligence. He
understood now the anguish which was driving Nanna into the grave;
and he had no comfort to offer her, for Nanna seemed to make out a
terribly clear case of rejection and of foreordained refusal.

"I was feared to ask Nicol to stand with the child when it ought to
have been presented in the kirk," she said.

"But your father?" asked David.

"I was feared to ask my father to stand in Nicol's place, lest it
should make Nicol harder to me than he was. And," she continued,
weeping bitterly as she spoke, "I thought not of Vala dying, and
hoped that in the future there might be a way opened. If father had
lived he would have seen to the child's right, but he was taken just
when he was moving in the matter; and then Nicol grew harder and
harder, and as for the kirk, he would not go there at all, and I
had no kin left to take his place. Then the child was hurt, and I
was long ill, and Nicol went away, and my friends grew cold, fearing
lest I might want a little help, and even the minister was shy and
far off. So I came out here with my sorrow, and waited and watched
for some friend or some opportunity. 'To-morrow, perhaps to-morrow,'
I said; but it was not to be."

"Nanna, you should have told me this before. I would have made the
promises for Vala; I would have done so gladly. Surely you should
have spoken to me."

"Every day I thought about it, and then I was feared for what would
happen when Nicol found it out. And do you not think that Matilda
Sabiston would have sent him word that I had set you to do his
duty? She would have twitted him about it until he would have raged
like a roaring lion, and blackened my good name, and yours also, and
most likely made it a cause for the knife he was ever so ready to
use. And then, David, there are folks--kirk folks, and plenty of
them--who would have said, 'There must be something wrong to set
Nicol Sinclair to blood-spilling.' And Matilda Sabiston would have
spoken out plainly and said, 'There is something wrong'--and this
and that, and more to it."

"And well, then?"

"Well, then, being Matilda, no one would have thought of
contradicting her; for she gives much money to the kirk and the
societies, and has left all she has to free slaves. No; there was
nothing to be done but to thole and be quiet."

"There might be some excuse for being quiet when Vala was not in
danger, but when her life was going, why did you not send for the