to be moved to anguish by sorrowful
memories, or even by remorse, than to live on in the dull heaviness of
heart, which had been Allison's state since she came to them, she
thought at last, and she was sure of it when, after a little, the door
opened, and Allison said, without showing her face:

"I think, mem, if ye please, I will hae time for the scones I promised
wee Marjorie."

"Very well, Allison," said her mistress quietly and with a sudden
lightening of the heart, she bent down and kissed the lips of her little
sleeping daughter. She was greatly relieved. She could not bear the
thought that she had hurt that sore heart without having helped it by
ever so little. When the time came for the meeting, Allison was in her
place with the rest.

The kirk, which could not be heated, and only with difficulty lighted,
was altogether too dismal a place for evening meetings in the
winter-time. So the usual sitting-room of the family was on one evening
of the week given up to the use of those who came to the prayer-meeting.
This brought some trouble both to the mistress and the maid, for the
furniture of the room had to be disarranged, and a good deal of it
carried into the bedroom beyond; and the carpet, which covered only the
middle of the room, had to be lifted and put aside till morning.

The boys, or it might be some early meeting-goer, helped to move the
tables and the chairs, and to bring in the forms on which the folk were
to sit, and sometimes they carried them away again when the meeting was
over. All the rest fell on Allison. And truly, when morning came, the
floor and the whole place needed special care before it was made fit for
the occupation of the mother and Marjorie.

But to do all that and more was not so hard for Allison as just to sit
still through the two hours during which the meeting lasted. It was at
such times, when she could not fill her hands and her thoughts with
other things, that her trouble, whatever it might be, came back upon
her, and her mistress saw the gloom and heaviness of heart fall on her
like a cloud. It was quite true, as she had said, at such times she
heard nothing of what was going on about her, because "she wasna
heedin'." But to-night she heeded.

She had Marjorie on her lap for one thing, for the child's sleep had
rested her, and her mother had yielded to her entreaty to be allowed to
sit up to the meeting. Allison could not fall into her usual dull
brooding, with