Here the door was noisily opened, and Jamie rushed in, crying "Auntie,
Auntie! I hae three letters for you, and one o' them came a week
ago."

"Oh Jamie, why did you not go to the post office before this?"

"I was getting ready for my exam----"

"Gie me the letters, laddie."

"And I could not get off till this morning."

There was a long letter from Cluny, but it was not the delayed letter;
and when Jamie had gone home, she gave her whole heart to the reading
of it. Then she turned anxiously to the other two. Both of them
contained small checks for poems written so long ago that she had
quite forgotten them. They were, however, veritable godsends, and she
thanked God for them. Now she could go to work. She could even take
time to make her foolish heroine do the proper thing. She felt as
rich, with her two pounds, as if the two had been twenty. And Cluny
was on his way home! Her letter had been posted at Auckland, and he
was about to leave there, for home, when he wrote.

The novel now progressed rapidly. It was writing itself, and "The
Daughter of the Sea" was all the company Christine wanted. Norman came
up the hill once in the day, or he sent his son Will, in his place,
and Jamie always ate his lunch beside Aunt Christine, and sometimes
Judith called to see if there was any news of Cluny. Sunday was her
day of trial. Ill-will can make itself felt, and never say a word, and
Christine noticed that everyone drew away from her. If Judith, or
Peter Brodie, or anyone spoke to her, they were at once set apart.
Everyone else drew away, and the very girls to whom she had been
kindest, drew furthest away.

It was, perhaps, a good thing for her. She only drew the closer to
God, and her pen was a never-failing friend and companion. The days
flew by, in the nights she slept and dreamed, and now and then the
Domine came in, and comforted and strengthened her. Then she read him
little chapters from her book, and he gave her much good advice, and
sufficient praise to encourage her. So week after week went on, and
though the whole village really disapproved of her retaining the
Ruleson cottage, she nearly forgot the circumstance. And the book grew
and grew in beauty, day by day, until on one lovely June afternoon,
the pretty heroine married Sandy Gilhaize, and behaved very well ever
afterward.

The Domine came in and found her flushed and excited over the wedding,
and the parting, and he took the book away with him, and told