"Learn, indeed! and slip through the world quietly!" exclaimed Mrs Stirling, with an expression of mingled pity and contempt. "These may be your doctrines, but they're not mine. But it's easy seen what will be the upshot of this. It's just your aunt and your father over again.

She would have laid her head beneath Alex Elder's feet, if it would have pleasured him; and you are none behind her. Such ways are neither for your good nor his. There are plenty of folk that'll say to-day that your father would have been a stronger man if he hadn't been so much spared as a laddie."

"If Archie grows up to be such a man as my father was, I shall have no more to wish for him!" exclaimed Lilias, rising, with more of spirit in her voice and manner than Mrs Stirling had ever witnessed there before.

"Eh, sirs! did you ever hear the like of that in all your born days?"

(lifting her hands as if appealing to an invisible audience). "As though I would say a word to make light of her father! It's well-known there were few left like him in the countryside when he went away. And for her to put herself in such a pa.s.sion! Not that I'm caring, Lilias, my dear. I think it has done you good. I haven't seen you with such a colour in your face this good while. But it ill becomes you to be offended with the like of me."

"I'm not angry. I didn't mean to be angry," said Lilias, meekly enough now; "but I can't bear to think you should suppose I would do anything that is not for Archie's good. I'm sure I wish to do what is right."

"I'm as sure of that as you are," said Nancy; "but Lilias, my dear, you must mind that it's not the sapling that has the closest shelter that grows to be the strongest tree. With you always to think and do for him, your brother would never learn to think and do for himself. It is not real kindness to think first of him. You must let him bear his share of the burden."

"But he's such a child," said Lilias; "and he was never strong, besides."

"Now, only hear her!" exclaimed Nancy, again appealing to an invisible audience. "You would think, to hear her speak, she was three-score at least. Lilias Elder, hear what I'm saying to you. You are just taking the best way to ruin this brother of yours, with your petting. All the care that you are lavishing on him now, he'll claim as his right before long, and think himself well worthy of it, too. Do you not wonder sometimes, that he is so blithe-like, when you have so much to make you weary? I doubt the laddie is overfull of himself."

"You are wrong, Mrs Stirling!" exclaimed Lilias, the indignant colour again flushing her face. "Archie is not full of himself. He would do anything for my aunt or me. And why should he not be blithe? I'm blithe, too, when he is at home; and, besides, he doesna know all."

The thought of what that "all" was--the struggle, the exhaustion, the forced cheerfulness--made her cheek grow pale; and she sat down again, saying to herself that Nancy was right, and that, for a while at least, she must rest.

"No; and he'll never ken as much as is for his good, if it depends on you. But he'll hear something ere he's many days older."

"Mrs Stirling," said Lilias, rising, and speaking very quietly now, "you must not meddle between me and my brother. He is all I have got; and I know him best. He never was meant for a herd-boy or a field-labourer. He must bide at the school; and he'll soon be fit for something better; and can you not see that will be as much for my good as his? I must just have patience and wait; and you are not to think ill of Archie."

"Me think ill of him! No, no; I think he's a fine laddie, as his father was before him, and that makes it all the more a pity that he should be spoiled. But if you'll promise to be a good bairn, and have patience till you are rested and quite strong again, and say no more about your fine plans till then, I'll neither make nor meddle between you. Must you go? Well, wait till I cover the fire with a wet peat, and I'll go down the brae with you. I dare say you are all right; your aunt will be wearying for you."

As Nancy went bustling about, Lilias seated herself again upon the door-step. The scene was changed since she sat there before; but it was not less lovely with the long shadows upon it than it was beneath the bright sunshine. It was very sweet and peaceful. The never-silent brook babbled on closely by, but all other sounds seemed to come from a distance. The delicate fringes of young birches waved to and fro with a gentle, beckoning motion; but not a rustle nor a sigh was heard.

Yes, it was very sweet and peaceful; and as she let her eyes wander over the scene, Lilias had a vague feeling of guilt upon her in being so out of tune with it all. Even in the days when she and Archie used to sit waiting, waiting for their weary mother it had not been so bad. She wondered why everything seemed so changed to her.

"I suppose it is because I'm not very well. I mind how weary and restless Archie used to be. I must have patience till I grow stronger.

And maybe something will happen that I'm not thinking about, just as Aunt Janet came to us then. There are plenty of ways beyond my planning; and the Lord has not forgotten us, I'm sure of that. I must just wait. There is nothing else I can do. There! I won't let another tear come to-night, if I can help it."

She did her best to help it, for Mrs Stirling came bustling out again, and they set off down the brae. She had leisure to help it, too; for from the moment the great door-key was hidden in the thatch, till they paused beside the stepping-stones, she did not need to speak a word.

Nancy had all the talk to herself, and rambled on from one thing to another, never pausing for an answer, till they stood beside the brook.

Here Nancy was to turn back.

"And now, Lilias, my dear, you'll mind what I have been saying to you, and that you have promised to have patience? It winna be easy. You have ay been doing for your aunt and your brother; and the more you had to do the better you liked it. But it's one thing to do, and it's another thing to sit with your hands tied and see them needing the help you canna give. I doubt you may have a sorer heart to carry about with you than you have kenned of yet. No, that I'm feared for you in the end. And, though it's no pleasant thing to ask favours, I have that faith in you that I would come to you, and wouldna fear to be denied. I ken you would have more pleasure in giving than in withholding; and I would take a gift from you as freely as I ken it would be freely given."

She paused a moment, and Lilias tried to say that indeed she might trust her, for it would give her more pleasure than she had words to tell, to be able to do anything for so kind a friend.

"As to that, we'll say nothing," said Nancy, drily. But suddenly, changing her tone and manner, she added, "What I have to say is this.

You'll not refuse to me what I wouldna refuse to you, you that are far wiser and better than I am, or ever expect to be? What's the use of having friends if you canna offer them a helping hand in their time of need? And mind, I'm no giving it," she added, opening her hands and showing three golden sovereigns. "There's no fear but I'll get them back with interest. There's nine-and-twenty more where these came from, in the china teapot in the press; though that's neither here nor there.

And, Lilias, my dear, no soul need ever know." The last words were spoken beseechingly.

Lilias did not refuse the gift in words. She had no words at her command. But she shut Nancy's fingers back upon the gold, and, as she did so, she stooped and touched the brown wrinkled hand with her lips.

"Indeed, it is not pride," she said, at last. "You must not think it's pride. But I am only a child; and it is my aunt who must accept and thank you for your kindness."

Nancy's face was a sight to see. At first she could have been angry; but her look changed and softened strangely at the touch of Lilias's lips upon her hand.

"My dear," said she gently, "it's easy to say 'my aunt,' but it is you who have borne the burden for her this while, poor helpless body!"

"Yes," said Lilias, eagerly. "Just because she is helpless, we must consider her the more; and she might not be pleased at my speaking to you first. But if we really need it, we will come to you; for you are a true friend. And you won't be angry?" she added, wistfully, as she held out her hand for good-bye.

"Angry with you! My little gentle lammie!"

Her tones, so unlike Nancy's usually sharp accents, brought back the child's tears with a rush, and she turned and ran away. Nancy stood watching her as she went over the stepping-stones and up the bank, and she tried to walk quietly on. But as soon as she was out of sight she ran swiftly away, that she might find a hiding-place where she could cry her tears out without danger of being seen.

"It's the clearing-shower, I think; and I must get it over before I go home. If Archie were to see me crying, I should have to tell him all; and I'm sure I don't know what would happen then."

As the thought pa.s.sed through her mind, a footstep sounded on the rocky pathway, and her heart leaped up at the sound of her brother's voice.

In a moment he was close beside her. She might have touched him with her outstretched hand. But the last drops of the clearing-shower were still falling.

"And I'm not going to spoil his pleasant Sabbath with my tears," she said to herself. So she lay still on the brown heather, quite unseen in the deepening gloaming.

"Lily!" cried Archie, pausing to listen--"Lily!" He grasped a branch of the rowan-tree, and swung himself down into the torrent's bed. "Lily!

Are you here, Lily?"

She listened till the sound of his footsteps died away, and then swung herself down as he had done. Dipping her handkerchief into the water of the burn, she said to herself, as she wiped the tear-stains from her face, "I'll be all the brighter to-morrow for this summer shower." And she laughed softly to herself as she followed the sound of her brother's voice echoing back through the glen.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN.

"I have stayed too late. They'll be wondering what has kept me," said Archie to himself, as he saw the firelight gleaming from the cottage-window. "I wonder where Lily can be, that she didn't come to meet me? I wonder if anything has happened?"

Something had happened. He paused a moment at the door to listen, as a strange voice reached his ear. It was a man's voice. Going in softly, he saw his aunt in her accustomed seat, and close beside her, with his head bowed down on his hands, sat a stranger. There was a strange look, too, on his aunt's face, the boy thought, and the tears were running down over her cheeks. Wondering and anxious, he silently approached her.

"Archie, are you come home?" said she, holding out her hand to him as he drew near. "Hugh, this is your uncle's son. Archie, this is your cousin Hugh come home again."

With a cry Archie sprang forward--not to take his cousin's offered hand, but to clasp him round the neck; and, trembling like a leaf, the returned wanderer held him in a close embrace.

"I knew you would come back," said Archie at last through his tears. "I always told Lilias you would be sure to come back again.--Oh, Aunt Janet, are you not glad?--And you'll never go away again? Oh, I was sure you would come home soon!"

Even his mother had not received her prodigal without some questioning, and the sudden clasping of Archie's arms about his neck, the perfect trust of the child's heart, was like balm to the remorseful tortures of Hugh Blair, and great drops from the man's eyes mingled with the boy's happy tears.

"Archie," said his aunt after a little time, "who spoke to you of your cousin Hugh?"

"Oh, many a one," answered Archie, as he gently stroked his cousin's hair. "Donald Ross, and the Muirlands shepherds, and Mrs Stirling."

And then he added, in a hushed voice, "Lilias heard you speak his name in your prayers often, when you thought her sleeping."

Hugh Blair groaned in bitterness of spirit. The thought of his mother's sleepless nights of prayer for him revealed more of the agony of all those years of waiting than her lips could ever utter. He thought of this night and that in his career of reckless folly, and said to himself: "It may have been then or there that my name was on her lips.

O G.o.d, judge me not in Thine anger!"

The words did not pa.s.s his lips, but the look he turned to his mother's face was a prayer for pardon, and she strove to smile as she said hopefully, "It is all past now, my son. G.o.d did not forget us--blessed be His name!"

"And Lily!" exclaimed Archie, starting up at last. "Lily! where are you? Oh, will she not be glad?"