s
going a little too far; every one saw that except herself.

"Stay here," Mrs. MacDougall said sternly to the two boys when they
entered the cottage kitchen. Then she took Elsie by the shoulder, and
marched her up the few stairs. Robbie and Duncan stood stock still,
looking blankly at each other.

[Illustration: "HE CAME RUNNING TOWARDS THEM" (_p. 3_).]

Presently there came from the room overhead a low sobbing sound, and a
minute or two afterwards Mrs. MacDougall appeared, stern and frowning.

It was an unhappy supper they sat down to. Robbie was very wretched, and
as for Duncan, each mouthful threatened to choke him. Mrs. MacDougall
wore a troubled face. After it was ended Duncan crept away to his
sister's room.

"I knew mother would," he said, sympathisingly, "and I know she'll do it
again, if you do it. You wouldn't, would you, Elsie? Mother never
whipped you before, never in all our lives, Elsie, but you didn't care.
What was the matter with you?"

"You little stupid!" Elsie replied patronisingly; "I won't fetch the
milk at all, not if mother whips me every day. I don't care. You don't
know what I know, and you don't know what I'm going to do, but I know
myself; and you little cowardy custard, you don't know what secret I
could tell you if I liked."

CHAPTER II.--WHAT ELSIE FOUND.

Duncan crept away to his own little bedchamber with an uneasy feeling of
trouble. It was next to Elsie's, separated from it only by a little
square bit of landing, and, like hers, was a tiny apartment under the
roof, with a ceiling of the bare rafters which supported the tiles. In
each was a small wooden bedstead, a deal stand, with basin and jug of
coarse white earthenware, and a small deal box, which served both to
keep clothes in and as a chair.

Everything was scrupulously clean, even to the dimity vallance that hung
across the low window. In autumn and winter the bleak wind whistled
through the chimneys and rattled the casements in a way that would have
prevented a town-bred child from sleeping, and up in those bare rooms
there was cold enough to pinch you black and blue; but Elsie and Duncan
had never thought much of that, for they had been accustomed to it from
babyhood, and only threw on their thick homespun garments in greater
haste.

Just now the weather was unusually hot, and the little lofts had gone
to the other extreme, and were more like ovens than anything else.
Duncan had scarcely taken off his jacket whe