yet something on his mind unrevealed. Her kindly nature,
however, in the end, mastered all other thoughts; and as she sat down
once more to her knitting, she muttered, "Poor man! it's a sore stroke
of poverty when the sight of one's only child coming back to them brings
the sense of distress and want with it." The words were not well uttered
when she saw Tony coming up the little pathway; he was striding along at
his own strong pace, but his hat was drawn down over his brows, and be
neither looked right nor left as he went.

"Did you meet the doctor, Tony?" said she, as she opened the door for
him.

"No; how should I meet him? I've not been to the Burn Bide."

"But he has only left the house this minute,--you must have passed each
other."

"I came down the cliff. I was taking a short cut," said he, as he threw
himself into a seat, evidently tired and weary.

"He has been here to say that he's off for Derry to-night with the mail
to meet Dolly."

"To meet Dolly!"

"Yes, she's coming back; and the doctor cannot say why, for she's over
that fever she had, and getting stronger every day; and yet she writes,
'You must come and fetch me from Derry, father, for I 'm coming home to
you.' And the old man is sore distressed to make out whether she's ill
again, or what's the meaning of it. And he thought, if he saw you, it
was just possible you could tell him something."

"What could I tell him? Why should he imagine I could tell him?" said
Tony, as a deep crimson flush covered his face.

"Only how she was looking, Tony, and whether you thought she seemed
happy where she was living, and if the folk looked kind to her."

"I thought she looked very sickly, and the people about her--the woman
at least--not over-kind. I'm not very sure, too, that Dolly herself was
n't of my mind, though she did n't say so. Poor girl!"

"It's the poor old father I pity the most, Tony; he's not far off
seventy, if he 's not over it; and sore work he finds it keeping body
and soul together; and now he has the poor sick lassie come back to him,
wanting many a little comfort, belike, that he can't afford her. Ah,
dear! is n't there a deal of misery in this life?"

"Except for the rich," said Tony, with an almost savage energy. "They
certainly have fine times of it. I saw that fellow, Maitland, about an
hour ago, lolling beside Alice Lyle--Trafford, I mean, in her carriage,
as if he owned the equipage and all it contained; and why? Just becaus