ing of amusement, admiration, and respect.

"What have you been about, Mary?" she said, in a tone of attempted
reproof. "You have made a perfect fright of the child. Take her away."

When Annie was once more brought back, with her hair restored to its
net, silent tears of mortification were still flowing down her
cheeks.--When Annie cried, the tears always rose and flowed without any
sound or convulsion. Rarely did she sob even.--This completed the
conquest of Mrs Forbes's heart. She drew the little one to her, and
kissed her, and Annie's tears instantly ceased to rise, while Mrs
Forbes wiped away those still lingering on her face. Mary then went to
get the tea, and Mrs Forbes having left the room for a moment to
recover that self-possession, the loss of which is peculiarly
objectionable to a Scotchwoman, Annie was left seated on a footstool
before the bright fire, the shadows from which were now dancing about
the darkening room, and Alec lay on the sofa looking at her. There was
no great occasion for his lying on the sofa, but his mother desired it,
and Alec had at present no particular objection.

"I wadna like to be gran' fowk," mused Annie aloud, for getting that
she was not alone.

"We're no gran' fowk, Annie," said Alec.

"Ay are ye," returned Annie, persistently.

"Weel, what for wadna ye like it?"

"Ye maun be aye feared for blaudin' things."

"Mamma wad tell ye a different story," rejoined Alec laughing. "There's
naething here to blaud (spoil)."

Mrs Forbes returned. Tea was brought in. Annie comported herself like a
lady, and, after tea, ran home with mingled feelings of pleasure and
pain. For, notwithstanding her assertion that she would not like to be
"gran' fowk," the kitchen fire, small and dull, the smelling shop, and
her own dreary garret-room, did not seem more desirable from her peep
into the warmth and comfort of the house at Howglen.

Questioned as to what had delayed her return from school, she told the
truth; that she had gone to ask after Alec Forbes, and that they had
kept her to tea.

"I tauld them that ye ran efter the loons!" said Bruce triumphantly.
Then stung with the reflection that _he_ had not been asked to stay to
tea, he added: "It's no for the likes o' you, Annie, to gang to
gentlefowk's hooses, makin' free whaur ye're no wantit. Sae dinna lat
me hear the like again."

But it was wonderful how Bruce's influence over Annie, an influence of
distress, was growing gradually