e mother uncomfortable, and
perhaps have a quarrel with Lizzie, who is proud as Punch of her
housekeeping.'

'She,' cried Annie, with all the contempt that could be compressed in a
syllable. 'Well, John, no doubt you are right about it. I will try not
to notice things. But it is a hard thing, after all my care, to see
everything going to ruin. But what can be expected of a girl who knows
all the kings of Carthage?'

'There were no kings of Carthage, Annie. They were called, why let me
see--they were called--oh, something else.'

'Never mind what they were called,' said Annie; 'will they cook our
dinner for us? But now, John, I am in such trouble. All this talk is
make-believe.'

'Don't you cry, my dear: don't cry, my darling sister,' I answered,
as she dropped into the worn place of the settle, and bent above her
infant, rocking as if both their hearts were one: 'don't you know,
Annie, I cannot tell, but I know, or at least I mean, I have heard the
men of experience say, it is so bad for the baby.'

'Perhaps I know that as well as you do, John,' said Annie, looking up at
me with a gleam of her old laughing: 'but how can I help crying; I am in
such trouble.'

'Tell me what it is, my dear. Any grief of yours will vex me greatly;
but I will try to bear it.'

'Then, John, it is just this. Tom has gone off with the rebels; and you
must, oh, you must go after him.'

CHAPTER LXIII

JOHN IS WORSTED BY THE WOMEN

Moved as I was by Annie's tears, and gentle style of coaxing, and most
of all by my love for her, I yet declared that I could not go, and leave
our house and homestead, far less my dear mother and Lizzie, at the
mercy of the merciless Doones.

'Is that all your objection, John?' asked Annie, in her quick panting
way: 'would you go but for that, John?'

'Now,' I said, 'be in no such hurry'--for while I was gradually
yielding, I liked to pass it through my fingers, as if my fingers shaped
it: 'there are many things to be thought about, and many ways of viewing
it.'

'Oh, you never can have loved Lorna! No wonder you gave her up so! John,
you can love nobody, but your oat-ricks, and your hay-ricks.'

'Sister mine, because I rant not, neither rave of what I feel, can you
be so shallow as to dream that I feel nothing? What is your love for
Tom Faggus? What is your love for your baby (pretty darling as he is)
to compare with such a love as for ever dwells with me? Because I do not
prate of it; because