couldn't tell him, and he supposed
she'd find out some place as soon as she could.

At last Elsie, straining her eyes through the gloom, could make out a
twinkling light or two, and something like a cottage. The roadside was
no longer open, but had the low stone walls so familiar to Scottish
eyes. As they drew near Elsie could see that the tiny tenement was only
some crofter's cottage, and that the walls enclosed his bit of land, not
large enough to dignify with the name of farm. Then it suddenly dawned
upon her that their friend of the cart was most likely one of these
crofters, whose poverty and hardships she had often heard her mother and
grandmother talk of.

They stopped at last before another of these tiny hovels, much farther
up the road. A faint light struggled through the small thick panes of
glass of a window little more than a half-yard square. The door opened
as they drew up, and a woman came out, talking very fast and shrilly in
the native Gaelic, which the children had often heard spoken, but
understood scarcely at all. Elsie could make out that she was scolding
very much, but that was all. As she came near her eyes fell upon the two
children. She stood still for a moment, her voluble speech checked by
amazement and dismay.

Elsie sprang out, and seized the moment. "We are wet through with the
rain," she said; "and it is a long way yet to Killochrie. I have some
pennies I will give you if you will let us stay to-night in your
cottage."

The woman stood eyeing her cautiously. So little as Elsie could see of
her, she was not a pleasant-looking individual. She seemed to be a big
bony creature, with loose locks of hair hanging about her face, and
great bare arms held a-kimbo.

"Show me the money," the woman said, holding out her hand greedily.

Elsie hesitated, for the incident with the bread made her afraid of
letting her whole stock be seen, but the rain was still pouring down,
and a night's shelter must be secured somehow. She drew her handkerchief
out of her pocket, and untying the knots, tried to slip a few pennies
out, and keep the others unobserved among the folds.

[Illustration: "THE CHILDREN ... MADE THEIR WAY UP TO THE COTTAGE
DOOR."]

But the woman watched her fumbling movements very narrowly, and suddenly
made a dart at the handkerchief, chinking the copper coins together,
with a rattle that betrayed them at once.

"I will take care of them," the woman said, holding out her hand. "Go
i