se bright days in Margray's nursery with, the boy, or
out-doors in the lone hay-fields or among the shrubberies; for he
waxed large and glad, and clung to me as my own. And to all kind Mary
Strathsay's pleas and words I but begged off as favors done to me, and I
was liker to grow sullen than smiling with all the stour.

"Why, I wonder, do the servants of a house know so much better than the
house itself the nearest concerns of shadowy futures? One night the
nurse paused above my bed and guarded the light with her hand.

"Let your heart lap," she said. "Sir Angus rides this way the morrow."

Ah, what was that to me? I just doubled the pillow over eyes and ears to
shut out sight and hearing. And so on the morrow I kept well out of the
way, till all at once Mrs. Strathsay stumbled over me and bade me, as
there would be dancing in the evening, to don my ruffled frock and be
ready to play the measures. I mind me how, when I stood before the glass
and secured the knot in my sash, and saw by the faint light my loosened
hair falling in a shadow round me and the quillings of the jaconet, that
I thought to myself how it was like a white moss-rose, till of a sudden
Nannie held the candle higher and let my face on me,--and I bade her
bind up my hair again in the close plaits best befitting me. And I crept
down and sat in the shade of the window-curtains, whiles looking out at
the soft moony night, whiles in at the flowery lighted room. I'd heard
Angus's coming, early in the afternoon, and had heard him, too, or e'er
half the cordial compliments were said, demand little Alice; and
they told him I was over and away at Margray's, and in a thought the
hall-doors clashed behind him and his heels were ringing up the street,
and directly he hastened home again, through the gardens this time, and
saw no sign of me;--but now my heart beat so thickly, when I thought of
him passing me in the dance, that, could I sit there still, I feared
'twould of itself betray me, and that warned me to question if the hour
were not ready for the dances, and I rose and stole to the piano and
sat awaiting my mother's word. But scarcely was I there when one came
quietly behind me, and a head bent and almost swept my shoulder; then he
stood with folded arms.

"And how long shall I wait for your greeting? Have you no welcome for
me, Ailie?"

"Yes, indeed, Sir Angus," I replied; but I did not turn my head, for as
yet he saw only the back of me, fair and grace