nce on the
green. Instead of that it was always 'Hof Mary!' and 'Here, Mary,' and
'What are you wasting your time for, Mary?'" She was all in a tremble,
moist no more with tears, but red and troubled at her eyes. "And
then--then--then he married her. If he had taken any one else it would
not have seemed so hard. I think I hated her for it. It was long before
I discovered they were chief, for my brothers that were out and in kept
it from me for their own reasons, and they never kent my feeling. But
when she was cried and married and kirked, each time it was a dagger at
my heart. Amn't I the stupid old _cailleach_, my dear, to be talking
of such a thing? But oh! to see them on the street together; to see him
coming home on his furloughs--I am sure I could not be but unfond of her
then! I mind once I wished her dead, that maybe he might--he might see
something in me still. That was when Nan was born and--"

"What," cried Gilian, "and was he Nan's father? I--I did not know."

She turned upon him an old face spoiled by the memories of the moment.
"Who else would it be, my dear?" said she, as if that settled it. "And
you are the first in the world I mentioned it to. He has never seen me
close in the face to guess it for himself, before or since. It might
have happened if I wished, after, but that was the punishment I gave
myself for my unholy thought about my friend his wife."

"Ah, little Auntie, little Auntie," said he in Gaelic "Little Auntie,
little Auntie!" No more than that, and yet his person was stormy with
grief for her old sorrow. He put his arm about her neck now--surely
never Highland lad did that before in their position, and tenderly, as
if he had practised it for years, he pressed her to his breast and side.

"And is it all by now but a recollection?" said he softly.

"All by long syne," said she, dashing the tears from her face and
clearing herself from that unusual embrace. "Sometimes I'll be thinking
it was better as it was, for I see many wives and husbands, and the dead
fire they sit at is less cheery than one made but never lighted. You
mustn't be laughing at an old lady, Gilian."

"I would never be doing that, God knows," he answered solemnly.

"And I am sure you would not, my dear," she said, looking trustfully at
him; "though sometimes I must be laughing at myself for such a folly.
Lads and lasses have spoken to me about their courtships and their
trials, and they never knew that I had anything b