er intended to be onybody's wife but mine; an' what wye should
you no' do as I propose? You ken I'll never do onything else but love
you. You ken that, Mysie!"

"Ay, Rob," she answered, "I ken a' that. Naebody kens it better than me
noo; and that's what mak's it sae awfu' hard to refuse. But it wadna be
richt at a', an' that's a' that can be thocht aboot it. You maunna ask
me ony mair."

"But I will ask you," he cried in another burst of passion, "an' I'll
keep on askin' you. You ken you are mine, an' naebody else has a richt
to you. I love you, Mysie! Oh, can you no' see, lassie, that it wad be
a' richt if you'd do as I want you?"

"No, no, Rob. Dinna say that. It wadna be richt at a', an' I'd be doin'
anither wrang thing if I did."

"But you said jist the noo, that you sometimes thocht you wadna marry
onybody else?"

"Yes, I ken I said that," she replied. Then with pain in her voice as it
grew more pitiful, "Dinna ask me, Rob, to do that. I ken it wadna be
richt, an' you munna ask me ony mair; for though I said that I sometimes
thocht I wadna marry onybody else, I canna marry you noo. Oh! if only my
mither kent, it would break her heart, an' my faither wad dee o' the
disgrace! What do they think o' me, Rob? Tell me a'--hoo are they, an'
if they miss me very much."

"Your faither and mither nearly broke their hearts," he said simply,
"an' at nicht your mother lies an' thinks an' wonders what has come owre
you. You ken hoo a mither grieves an' worries aboot her bairns. She
never thocht o' sic a thing happening in her family. She was aye sae
prood o' them a'. I heard her say ane day to my mither that she dootit
you maun be deid, or you wad hae sent her word; and that you wadna hae
gane wrang. She never, she said, kent o' you takin' up wi' men, an' was
sure that naething o' that kind had happened."

"Did she really think that, Rob?" asked Mysie, glad to know that her
mother had believed in her virtue, yet pained. "Rob, if only mithers wad
be mair open wi' their lassies an' tell them o' the things they
shouldna' do, an' the dangers that lie afore them. But tell me aboot
them a'. What did my faither say aboot it? How are they a' keepin'?"

This was the question which Robert had feared most, for although Matthew
Maitland had said very little, everybody knew that he grieved sorely
over his daughter's disappearance, and at the time was lying very ill.
He was fast nearing the end, which most colliers of the day reached