er the moor, and remarked to
her neighbour that there was a chilliness about the air this morning
which felt like the approach of cold weather.

"Well, we mustn't grumble," the farmer said, in his northern dialect;
"it's over fine for the time o' year; but when the weather does break we
shall have the winter early upon us, and a long, hard one too, I
reckon."

"If I have a good day I'll just take some warm stuff home for the
children," Mrs. MacDougall said to herself. Then she pulled out her
purse and looked over its contents, turning them over and over, and
reckoning them up, as if by dint of careful arithmetic they might,
perchance, come to a little more. In one part of it there was a little
packet of money done up in paper, marked "Robbie." There was more there
than in all the other divisions put together. It was clear Robbie would
not go short. Mrs. MacDougall looked at it with a little sigh.

[Illustration: "'WE ARE VERY TIRED,' ELSIE SAID" (_p. 71_).]

"I must get yarn to finish Elsie's stockings," she said to herself.
"Duncan will have her old ones that she's grown out of. A fine lassie
she'll be in a few more years, growing like this; but it's hard work to
keep them without a man's earnings to look to."

[Illustration]

"You're thinking out some very hard question, judging by your silence,"
the farmer said, after a while.

"Yes, it's just a puzzle to know how to bring the children up," Mrs.
MacDougall replied. "Since my good man died and left me with them, it's
been a hard matter at times, but never so hard as now. There's my Elsie,
growing as fine a lass as may be, though a deal bit wilful without a man
to intimidate her. She'll have to take service in a few years more, for
what else can I do with her? an' I'm thinking she'll take it hard, for
she's got rare notions, an' is a bit clever above the common. Duncan's
over young yet to fret about; Robbie'll be provided for, no doubt, when
the proper time comes."

"I wouldn't fret at all," the farmer replied, heartily; "you've done the
best, and worked hard for the bairnies since your good man was taken.
They'll find a good provision, I doubt not. There's a special protection
for the fatherless and the widow, so the minister's always saying."

"It's just the one interest of my life to see the children started,"
Mrs. MacDougall replied, "although sometimes I get pretty nigh
disheartened."

"You've had a sorrowful life," the farmer said. "Some dead, others