e next morning. This time it was only a third-class carriage, crowded
by very ordinary-looking men and women--a very different journey from
the one with the wicked "fairy mother;" but the unhappy child, tired out
with all she had gone through, leant her head against her mother's
shoulder, and slept through the night with a sweet sense of safety and
protection to which she had long been a stranger.

They found Duncan still slowly mending, but looking a mere shadow of his
former bonnie self. Elsie was so overwhelmed at the sight of his poor
little wasted figure, and cried so bitterly, that the nurse promptly
ordered her out of the ward.

"Tell Elsie I'm quite well now," he said anxiously to Mrs. MacDougall.
"She needn't cry, because we are going home; aren't we, mother? You did
say we might."

"Yes, well all be happy again together soon, little lad," Mrs.
MacDougall replied.

"Perhaps they hurt Elsie," Duncan continued, still anxious for Elsie.
"They were bad people, mother;" and the little fellow shuddered.

They were obliged to calm him and turn his thoughts away. One of the
worst points of his illness had been the fits of terror that came over
him when a recollection of the Fergusons or the Murdochs passed through
his brain. It had been feared that his mind was seriously affected by
the fright he had undergone.

He was not yet fit to be moved, so Mrs. MacDougall decided to take Elsie
home, and come again to fetch Duncan when he was ready to leave, as she
had barely money enough left to take her to Dunster. Duncan was,
however, convalescent, and in a fair way of recovering.

It was only now that Mrs. MacDougall, the more pressing cares of her
mind relieved, had time to remember Elsie's curious statement before the
magistrates. "What did you mean, child, by saying that you didn't
rightly know your own name?" she asked. "Surely you were dazed with the
strange faces all round you. I feared you had lost your reason."

Elsie hung her head sheepishly. Although she had heard nothing from
any one on the subject, she had somehow a conviction in her mind that
she had been very silly. It was easy to talk grandly to Duncan, but
quite a different thing to tell the story to Mrs. MacDougall.

"I don't know. I did think that perhaps me and Duncan were the babies of
Aunt Nannie's what Uncle Grosvenor sent you to take care of," Elsie
stammered, growing very red.

"Good patience, child! What do you know about your aunt Nannie's