's boy at
last. Come, Scotty, and mother will be seeing how big you are."

The old woman took the boy's sturdy brown hand in her own poor crooked
ones as well as she was able, and peered eagerly into his face.

"Eh, eh!" she cried musingly. "He will be some like Marget's lass, but
he's his faether's bairn; eh, he's got the set an' the look o' yon fine
English callant, forbye the MacDonald eyes."

The aforementioned MacDonald eyes drooped and the rosy MacDonald lips
pouted at the word English.

"He's awful nice, isn't he, Granma MacDonald?" whispered the little
girl.

The old woman gazed at the little fair face, and then back at the boy.

"Strange, strange," she murmured, half audibly. "It's a queer warld, a
queer warld, the twa here thegither, an' ane has a', an' the ither has
naething. Mebby the good Lord will be settin' it right. Och, aye,
He'll set it richt some way."

The children gazed uncomprehendingly at her, but just then Kirsty came
forward with a plate of bannocks soaked in maple syrup, and for a time
they gave it their absorbed attention.

Then Kirsty soon had to leave them for her work, and after giving the
children the freedom of the clearing, provided they did not go near the
well, she rearranged her mother's pillows very gently and returned to
the field.

The two sat silent by the bedside. Now that their feast was over, the
little girl looked with longing eyes through the doorway; but Scotty
felt constrained to wait a few minutes, for Granny had said that
Kirsty's mother was sick and lonely and needed comforting.

The old woman looked up with sudden brightness in her eyes. "Can ye
read?" she asked eagerly. Oh, yes, Scotty could read, had been able to
do so for a very long time.

"I can read too, can't I, Granma MacDonald?" cried the little girl. "I
read to you sometimes, don't I?"

"Yes, yes, lassie, ye're jist a wee bit o' sunshine. Eh, what would
yer puir auld Granny do if ye didna come to see her in the simmer? But
Ah want the laddie to read me the wee bit that Kirsty reads me; ye ken
it, bairnie?"

She pointed to the old worn Bible lying on the window sill, with a
drowsy blue-bottle fly droning about it. The little girl tripped over
and brought it to Scotty.

"I know the place, Granma, don't I?" she chattered; "it's got the blue
mark in it. There!" Her rosy finger pointed to a well-worn page,
marked by a piece of woven scented grass.

"Aye!" said the old woman, with a