fin, but remained upstairs (as I suppose)
comforting her mistress. The other poor distracted servants, between
tears and ignorance, made but a sorry business of entertaining the
company, so that but half a dozen at most cared to return to the house, of
whom I was not one.

The manse had to be vacated, and within a week or two I heard that Mrs.
Johnstone had sold a great part of her furniture, dismissed all her
household but Kirstie, and retired to a small cottage a little further up
the street and scarcely a stone's-throw from the manse.

"She made," says Kirstie, "little show of mourning for her husband, nor
for months afterwards did she return to the terror she had shown that day
in the garret, yet I am sure that from the hour of his death she never
knew peace of mind. She had fitted up a room in the cottage with her
wheel and bleaching boards, and we spent all our time in reading or
thread-making. At night my cot would be strewn in her bedroom, and we
slept with a candle burning on the table between us; but once or twice I
woke to see her laid on her side, or resting on her elbow, with her face
towards me and her eyes fixed upon mine across the light. This used to
frighten me, and she must have seen it, for always she would stammer that
I need not be alarmed, and beg me to go to sleep again like a good child.
I soon came to see that, whatever her own terror might be, she had the
utmost dread of my catching it, and that her hope lay in keeping me
cheerful. Since I had nothing on my mind at that time, and knew of no
cause for fear, I used to sleep soundly enough; but I begin to think that
my mistress slept scarcely at all. I cannot remember once waking without
finding her awake and her eyes watching me as I say.

"She herself would not set foot outside the cottage for weeks together,
and if by chance we did take a walk it would be towards sunset, when the
fields were empty and the folk mostly gathered on the green at the far end
of the village. There was a footpath led across these fields at the back
of the cottage, and here at such an hour she would sometimes consent to
take the air, leaning on my arm; but if any wayfarer happened to come
along the path I used to draw her aside into the field, where we made
believe to be gathering of wild flowers. She had a dislike of meeting
strangers and a horror of being followed; the sound of footsteps on the
path behind us would drive her near crazy."

I think 'twas