treatment of her baby.

"Gin I hadna jist gotten a glimp o' him in time, he wad hae drooned the
bonny infant afore my verra een. It's weel waured on them!"

It did not occur to her that a wet skin was so very moderate a
punishment for child-murder, that possibly there had been no connection
between them.

This first voyage of the _Bonnie Annie_ may seem a bad beginning; but I
am not sure that most good ends have not had such a bad beginning.
Perhaps the world itself may be received as a case in point. Alec and
Curly went about for a few days with a rather subdued expression. But
as soon as the boat was refitted, they got George Macwha to go with
them for cockswain; and under his instructions, they made rapid
progress in rowing and sculling. Then Annie was again their companion,
and, the boat being by this time fitted with a rudder, had several
lessons in steering, in which she soon became proficient. Many a
moonlight row they had on the Glamour; and many a night after Curly and
Annie had gone home, would Alec again unmoor the boat, and drop down
the water alone, letting the banks go dreaming past him--not always
sure that he was not dreaming himself, and would not suddenly awake and
find himself in his bed, and not afloat between heaven and earth, with
the moon above and the moon below him. I think it was in these seasons
that he began first to become aware of a certain stillness pervading
the universe like a law; a stillness ever being broken by the cries of
eager men, yet ever closing and returning with gentleness not to be
repelled, seeking to infold and penetrate with its own healing the
minds of the noisy children of the earth. But he paid little heed to
the discovery then, for he was made for activity, and in activity he
found his repose.

CHAPTER XXXII.

My story must have shown already that, although several years younger
than Alec, Annie had much more character and personality than he. Alec
had not yet begun to look realities in the face. The very nobility and
fearlessness of his nature had preserved him from many such actions as
give occasion for looking within and asking oneself whereto things are
tending. Full of life and restless impulses to activity, all that could
properly be required of him as yet was that the action into which he
rushed should be innocent, and if conventionally mischievous, yet
actually harmless. Annie, comfortless at home, gazing all about her to
see if there was a re