r my treat. But, really, I did not know what the
comfort of the sabbath would be. The chapel is all weather-tight now;
and thank God for sending us a minister!"

As all expected, up came the steward; very early and very angry. Nobody
from the minister's house cared to encounter him. He threw the letters
down upon the threshold of the door, and shouted out that his bringing
them back was more than the writer deserved. If he had read them, and
made mischief of their contents, nobody could, under the circumstances,
have blamed him. Here they were, however, as a lesson to the family not
to lose their time, and waste their precious ink and paper in writing
letters that would never leave the island.

As he was turning to go away, the widow opened her door, and asked if he
would excuse her for troubling him with one little commission which she
had not thought of the day before, and she produced the ball of thread.

Lady Carse was watching through a chink in a shutter. She saw the
steward's countenance relax, and heard his voice soften as he spoke to
the widow. She perceived that Annie had influence with him, if she
would use it faithfully and zealously. Next she observed the care with
which he wrote in his note book Annie's directions about her commission,
and how he deposited the precious ball in his securest pocket. She felt
that this chance of escape, though somewhat precarious, was the best
that had yet occurred.

Before the steward was out of sight she opened the shutter, though it
creaked perilously, and kissed her hand to the surprised Annie, who was
watching her agent down the hill. Annie smiled, but secured caution by
immediately going in.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

TRUE SOLITUDE.

The season advanced, bringing the due tokens of the approach of summer.
The gales came from the east instead of the west, and then subsided into
mild airs. The mists which had brooded over sea and land melted away,
and, as the days lengthened, permitted the purple heights of the rocky
Saint Kilda to be seen clear and sharp, as the sun went down behind
them. The weed which had blackened the shore of the island at the end
of winter was now gone from the silver sands. Some of it was buried in
the minister's garden as manure. The minister began to have hopes of
his garden. He had done his best to keep off the salt spray by building
the wall ten feet high; and it was thought that just under the wall a
few cabbages might grow