ll have it--anything but
my lamp and my oil."

"The oil is the only thing I want; and a small matter it is for me, who
had dozens of wax-lights burning in my house at Edinburgh, and will have
dozens more before I die."

"Your fire must serve you, madam. I give you what I have to bestow. My
light is not mine to give: it belongs to wanderers on the sea. You
cannot think, madam, of taking what belongs, as I may say, neither to
you nor me."

Lady Carse had that in her countenance at this moment which alarmed the
widow for her light; and she therefore desired her son, with authority,
to relieve the lady of the oil can, and trim the lamp ready for night.

Lady Carse, setting her teeth, and looking as malicious as an ill-bred
cur, said that if the light belonged to nobody here nobody else should
have the benefit of it; and attempted to empty the oil upon the hearth.
This was more than Rollo was disposed to permit. He seized her arm with
no gentle grasp, and saved all the oil but a few drops, which blazed
amongst the peats. He moreover told the lady, with an air of
superiority, that he had almost begun to think she had as much wit as
the islanders; but that he now saw his mistake; and she must manage her
own affairs. He should stay with his mother to-night.

It was his mother who, rebuking his incivility, desired him to attend
upon the lady. It was his mother who, when Lady Carse burst away from
them and said she would be followed by nobody, awoke in Rollo something
of the feeling which she herself entertained.

"Carry down these things," she said. "It is too true; as she says, that
every place is hateful to her; and that is the more reason why we should
do what we can to make some comfort in the place she is in."

"But she says such things to you, mother! I don't want to hear any more
such things."

"When people are in torment, Rollo, they do not know what they say. And
she has much to torment her, poor lady! Now go; and let us try to hide
her from Macdonald. If she and the minister can have speech of each
other, I trust she may become more settled in mind. You know God has
made His creatures to differ one from another. There are some that sit
all the more still in storms; and there are others that are sadly
bewildered in tempests: but, if one ray of God's sun is sent to them, it
is like a charm. They stop and watch it; and when it spreads about
them, it seems to change their nature: they lie down and b