uperstition_; and this therefore was not the answer
that might have been expected of him. But he had begun with the
symbolic and mystical in his reception of Annie, and perhaps there was
something in the lovely childishness of her unconscious faith (while
she all the time thought herself a dreadful unbeliever) that kept
Thomas to the simplicities of the mystical part of his nature. Besides,
Thomas's mind was a rendezvous for all extremes. In him they met, and
showed that they met by fighting all day long. If you knocked at his
inner door, you never could tell what would open it to you--all
depending on what happened to be _uppermost_ in the wrestle.

The candle was brought and set on the table, showing two or three
geranium plants in the window. Why her eyes should have fixed upon
these, Annie tried to discover afterwards, when she was more used to
thinking. But she could not tell, except it were that they were so
scraggy and wretched, half drowned in the darkness, and half blanched
by the miserable light, and therefore must have been very like her own
feelings, as she stood before the ungentle but not unkind stone-mason.

"Weel, lassie," said he, when Jean had retired, "what do ye want wi'
me?"

Annie burst into tears again.

"Jean, gae butt the hoose direckly," cried Thomas, on the mere chance
of his attendant having lingered at the door. And the sound of her
retreating footsteps, though managed with all possible care,
immediately justified his suspicion. This interruption turned Annie's
tears aside, and when Thomas spoke next, she was able to reply.

"Noo, my bairn," he said, "what's the maitter?"

"I was at the missionar kirk last nicht," faltered Annie.

"Ay! And the sermon took a grip o' ye?--Nae doot, nae doot. Ay. Ay."

"I canna help forgettin' _him_, Thomas."

"But ye maun try and no forget him, lassie."

"Sae I do. But it's dour wark, and 'maist impossible."

"Sae it maun aye be; to the auld Aidam impossible; to the young
Christian a weary watch."

Hope began to dawn upon Annie.

"A body micht hae a chance," she asked with meditative suggestion,
"allooin' 'at she did forget him whiles?"

"Nae doot, lassie. The nations that forget God are them that dinna
care, that never fash their heids, or their herts aither, aboot
him--them that were never called, never chosen."

Annie's trouble returned like a sea-wave that had only retired to
gather strength.

"But hoo's a body to ken whether she _be_ a