ttle girl seemed possessed with the idea that Miss Campbell would be
sure to be able to help Geordie in this extremity; and so she left her
old granny to find her way alone, and had hurried away in the direction
of Kirklands to tell her sorrowful tale, meeting Grace, as we know, in
the elm avenue, after her eventful talk with her brother.

They were already half-way to the stepping-stones, when Grace
remembered--feeling it unaccountable that, even in her anxiety, she
should have forgotten for an instant--that Walter must know what had
happened to Geordie--Geordie, to whom he owed so much. She felt that she
could not leave the little weeping girl to go on her way alone; but just
as she was standing hesitating what it might be best to do, she met one
of the dwellers in the valley, who promised to go at once and convey a
message to her brother, and then she and Jean hurried on towards the
fatal pasture lands. Before they crossed the stepping-stones which led
to the knolls, Grace could see a little group bending over a spot in the
heather; but no sound reached them through the calm evening air, except
the rippling of the sunset-tinted river, which rolled between. And so
Geordie was lying there gored, maimed, perhaps dying, as Jean persisted
in saying. Grace felt her heart sink with fear, lest the sorrowful
refrain should be true, as she crept silently near to the place where
the little company was gathered. But Geordie was not dead.

"Here comes Miss Campbell," somebody said, and then the circle opened
up, and Grace caught a glimpse of her scholar lying very quietly among
the heather with his blue eye turned gladly to welcome his friend.

"It was only a faint, after all,--and some bruises that will soon heal,"
Mistress Gowrie said, in a tone of relieved anxiety, as she rose from
the turf where she had been kneeling to make way for Grace, who felt an
intense relief as she bent smilingly over him, and talked gently of the
danger past, with her heart full of thankfulness.

When little Jean saw the happy aspect of matters, her grief gave place
to the wildest ecstasy of delight. Throwing herself down beside her
brother, she shouted gleefully, "Oh, Geordie, Geordie, ye're no dyin'
after all, ye're all right. I'll never greet again all the days o' my
life," was the rash promise which she made in her joy, remembering
Geordie's dislike to tears. Presently her thoughts reverted to her
treasure, which, in her grief, had been forgott