l resistance.

Annie sat down and cried. Her former condition in the house was
enviable to this.--That same evening, without saying a word to any one,
for there was a curious admixture of outward lawlessness with the
perfect inward obedience of the girl, she set out for Clippenstrae, on
the opposite bank of the Wan Water. It was a gorgeous evening. The sun
was going down in purple and crimson, divided by such bars of gold as
never grew in the mines of Ophir. A faint rosy mist hung its veil over
the hills about the sunset; and a torrent of red light streamed down
the westward road by which she went. The air was soft, and the light
sobered with a sense of the coming twilight. It was such an evening as
we have, done into English, in the ninth Evening Voluntary of
Wordsworth. And Annie felt it such. Thank God, is does not need a
poetic education to feel such things. It needs a poetic education to
_say_ such things so, that another, not seeing, yet shall see; but that
such a child as Annie should not be able to feel them, would be the one
argument to destroy our belief in the genuineness of the poet's vision.
For if so, can the vision have come from Nature's self? Has it not
rather been evoked by the magic rod of the poet's will from his own
chambers of imagery?

CHAPTER LXXXII.

When she reached Clippenstrae, she found that she had been sent there.
Her aunt came from the inner room as she opened the door, and she knew
at once by her face that Death was in the house. For its expression
recalled the sad vision of her father's departure. Her great-uncle, the
little grey-headed old cottar in the Highland bonnet, lay dying--in the
Highland bonnet still. He was going to "the land o' the Leal" (loyal),
the true-hearted, to wait for his wife, whose rheumatism was no chariot
of fire for swiftness, whatever it might be for pain, to bear her to
the "high countries." He has had nothing to do with our story, save
that once he made our Annie feel that she had a home. And to give that
feeling to another is worth living for, and justifies a place in any
story like mine.

Auntie Meg's grief appeared chiefly in her nose; but it was none the
less genuine for that, for her nature was chiefly nose. She led the way
into the death-room--it could hardly be called the sick-room--and Annie
followed. By the bedside sat, in a high-backed chair, an old woman with
more wrinkles in her face than moons in her life. She was perfectly
calm,