to keep my heart from all love's care and sorrow.

Then she put the book away, turned out the light and lay down. But the
old mysterious, hungering sound of the sea had an angry sough in it;
and she went to sleep fearing it, and thinking of it as a deep
starless darkness, hanging over the dreamlike figures of dead sailors
and fishers. At midnight she awoke, the storm her father had predicted
was roaring over the great waters. She went to her little window and
looked out--darkness, wildness, desolation--and she hasted and put
plenty of peats on the fire, and carried her mother an extra quilt.

"I hae made up the fire, Mither dear," she said, "and if ye want to
get up, you'll be warm, and I'll come and sit by you."

"Will I waken your feyther?"

"Whatna for? There's naething to fear. Norman and Eneas are doubtless
at hame. Most o' our men are. Few would start after the dance. They
would see the storm coming."

"Will it be a bad storm?"

"I think it will. But the sea is His, and He made it. If there is a
storm He is guiding it. Ye ken how often we sing 'He plants His
footsteps on the sea, and rides upon the storm.'" And so, sweet-eyed
and fearless, she went away, but left peace and blessing behind her.

In the living room, she laid more peats on the fire. Then she went to
her own room. Some words had been singing in her heart as she moved
about, and she took the big copy book out of the drawer, and stooping
to the crusie burning on the table, she wrote them down:

The night is black, the winds are wild,
The waves are taking their own will,
Dear Jesus, sleeping like a child,
Awake! and bid the storm be still.

She read the words over with a smile. "They might be worse," she
thought, "but Christine! You hae been writing poetry. You'll hae to
stop that nonsense! Weel, it wasna my fault. It came o' itsel', and I
dinna feel as if I had done anything much out o' the way--and I was
maist asleep, if that is ony kind o' an excuse. I----"

CHAPTER VI

A CHILD, TWO LOVERS, AND A WEDDING

Because I am,
Thy clay that weeps, thy dust that cares,
Contract my hour that I may climb and find relief.

Love, thou knowest, is full of jealousy.
Love's reasons are without reason.

The summer had been full of interest and excitement, but it was over.
There was the infallible sense of ended summer, even at noonday; and
the dahlias and hollyhocks, dripping in the morning mist, seem