might, to look hopeful; but her
truth-telling countenance betrayed her. Her friend shook her head
gravely.

"It might have done, with her to guide them; but it's very different
now, as you ken yourself, far better than I can tell you. It would be
little else than a temptin' o' Providence to expose these helpless
bairns, first to the perils o' the sea, and then to those o' a strange
country. He'll never do it. He's restless now; and unsettled; but when
time, that cures most troubles, goes by, he'll think better of it, and
bide where he is."

Janet made no reply, but in her heart she took no such comfort. She
knew it was no feeling of restlessness, no longing to be away from the
scene of his sorrow that had decided the minister to emigrate, and that
he had decided she very well knew. These might have hastened his plans,
she thought, but he went for the sake of his children. They might make
their own way in the world, and he thought he could better do this in
the New World than in the Old. The decision of one whom she had always
reverenced for his goodness and wisdom must be right, she thought; yet
she had misgivings, many and sad, as to the future of the children she
had come to love so well. It was to have her faint hope confirmed, and
her strong fears chased away, that she had spoken that afternoon to her
friend; and it was with a feeling of utter disconsolateness that, she
turned to her work again, when, at last, she was left alone.

For Janet had a deeper cause for care than she had told, a vague feeling
that the worldly wisdom of her friend could not help her here, keeping
her silent about it to her. That very morning, her heart had leaped to
her lips, when her master in his grave, brief way, had asked,--

"Janet, will you go with us, and help me to take care of her bairns?"

And she had vowed to God, and to him, that she would never leave them
while they needed the help that a faithful servant could give. But the
after thought had come. She had other ties, and cares, and duties,
apart from these that clustered so closely round the minister and his
motherless children.

A mile or two down the glen stood the little cottage that had for a long
time been the home of her widowed mother, and her son. More than half
required for their maintenance Janet provided. Could she forsake them?
Could any duty she owed to her master and his children make it right for
her to forsake those whose blood flowed in he