SIST

CHAPTER XII.

POOR MARGARET.

ISTER Isobel, lying on the sofa through those lengthening spring days, heard casually that Mr. Allardyce was going away for a long holiday,

She had wondered constantly to herself, as Easter came and passed, that there was "no word" of his marriage. But when she heard this, she guessed immediately, and made the remark, "He'll be out to his frien's at Fernytofts."

"No," Sister Anne, her informant, replied. "I think Mr. Farquhar said he was going to stay with a brother in England."

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Eh, he is!" was all Isie's comment, but she wondered greatly. The marriage could not have taken place. "He surely said he was to be married gin spring," she kept thinking to herself.

And then Sister Anne said it was for his health, she believed, that he was going. He had not been at all well lately.

"Poor fella! I doubt he's gone to's work ower soon," said Isie. "A fever like yon isna left behind in a few weeks. Though he was looking real well when I sa' him last," she added, and said no more.

But her loving tender heart was full of anxiety. She wondered so much if he was happy: if anything had occurred to postpone his marriage. "I doubt he's had hard work to settle his mind to it," she thought, "and may be he's nae right reconciled to it yet." And night after night the patient little invalid lay awake, unable from nervous restlessness and anxiety to close an eye, but silent, careful not to waken Sister Anne, who always slept in her room, and praying, so earnestly, so lovingly, so fervently for him! It was no wonder that the mental strain, borne, as she was obliged to bear it, in secret, reacted upon the delicate weak frame, and added not a little to her sufferings. But she never murmured. That utter want of sleep at night

except when actually under the influence of opiates-was one of her severest trials, but she turned it into a blessing by her loving intercessions.

"It canna be any ill for me to pray for him steady," she would say to herself. "May be it's for that, the LORD has put this love into my heart-for I dinna think but it's from Himself." And then she would clasp her hands above her breast, and lie, hour after hour, repeating, sometimes in the faintest whisper from her lips, but over and over in the depth of her heart, the petition, "O LORD, make him happy in Thine own way: let it be as Thou seest best, only keep him in Thy fear and favour and love-as Thou knowest best, and lovest best !"

I think poor little Isie would have fared ill if she had not had this constant thought-this one object of love and care and prayer, to draw her out of herself, and lift her above the region of her own pain and trouble. She scarcely knew indeed how much she owed to the thought: how much mental occupation it gave her, in spite of her anxiety. It was as if this one man had been committed to her, in body and soul, for special watching and intercession, by reason of her unconquerable, inexplicable attachment to him.

Her anxiety was relieved at last. One bright day in the beginning of June the Mother came into the room where she was lying on her couch as usual, saying, "Mr. Allardyce is here; he is just come back. This" (laying down a parcel beside Isie's hand) "is some book that he has brought you some views, I think he said. Would you like to see him for a few minutes ?"

"Eh yes, I would that," said Sister Isie, with a flush of glad surprise.

Mother.

And pre

"I will ask him in here," said the sently she ushered him in, and left him. She thought that the old friends and neighbours might like a few words together alone and she knew that Mr. Allardyce, at any rate, had a great regard for his nurse. It was not unusual either for Sister Isie to see a visitor now and then when she was feeling pretty well; and it cheered her up to do so.

He came up to her, in his old goodnatured way. He was looking much better and brighter than before he left home in fact quite restored.

"I hardly expected to see ye, Sister," he said as he shook hands, and then drew a chair forward and sat down beside her. "How are ye keeping ?"

"I'm nae just very strong, Mr. Allardyce. How's yourself now ?"

"Oh, I'm quite well, thank you-I'm only just home, you know."

"Ay, I thought that. I'm so much obliged to ye for this," touching the parcel, "I havena looked inside, but I'm sure ye're too mindful-"

"Eh, it's not worth speakin' about," he said rather shyly. "They're just some views of that country where my brother stops among the English lakes, ye ken-it's so pretty, I thought it might amuse ye some, turnin' them over."

Then, as Isie rather nervously unfolded the paper, he sat for a moment or two silent: after which he said abruptly, without looking up,

"It's all at an end, ye ken-yon.”

Of course Isie understood immediately.

"It is ?" she repeated. "I'd thought-maybe"

"Ye had? Ay. It was just all a mistake fra' the very

commencement."

"It's been that," said Isie musingly. "I doubt ye havena been able to forget her suffeeciently—"

"Forget her?" he cried earnestly; "I'll not forget her while I'm in my senses. And now has there been any

word fra' Nellie again ?"

"Eh na, Mr. Allardyce. I dinna think maybe she can get written often.”

"There's never been anything in the papers whatever— I'm aye noticin' them. But any way, I ken fine she's nae

dead."

"Ye do? It's maybe given ye to know," said Isie, with that quiet serious realization of the unseen which was becoming more and more a part of her nature.

"Ye dinna ca' it supersteetion ?" said Edmund, with rather a deprecating glance of inquiry.

"Eh na. I wouldn't say it was that, for them that trusts in the LORD, and believes in Him. Of course ye're aware a'thing's in His ordering, and ye're nae seeking onything but what He app'ints for ye," Isie said.

"I hope not, Sister. I can go on the wye that I am, well enough, if it be His Will. But I canna marry another, ye ken."

"I doubt ye canna." And with a shy smile, looking down, she continued, "I was surprised, some wye, ye ken, when ye'd told me, that time. I couldn't just feel as tho' it was a'thegither true-though I did hope ye'd found happinessI aye asked it for ye !"

"So mindful's ye are," he said in a low grateful tone. "Ye've prayed for me always, maybe ?"

A curious inward smile of consciousness passed over Sister Isie's face then, but all she said was, "I've done that, Mr. Allardyce. I wish I could do it better-or was mair worthy till."

"I'd like to know who's worthy if it's not yersel'. If I've been saved fra' goin' wrong a'thegither it's by my friends' good prayers for me, I doubt, and nae for any desairvin' o' my own. I was real unhappy yon time, Sister, till a'thing was put right atween her-that I tellt ye of-and mysel'."

And, absorbed in Mr. Allardyce's interests as Isie was, her woman's heart thrilled with a strange sympathy for that "her —that woman, unknown to her, who had endured perhaps a like trial with her own, who might be only now feeling its full force that Margaret Maitland whose name had been daily and often in her prayers, interwoven with his. Ah, she was more than ever needing to pray for her now, it might be. Poor Margaret!

They neither spoke for two or three minutes; till Edmund looked up and said: "And now tell me o' yerself, Sister. Are ye makin' any progress, do ye think?"

She shook her head. "I dinna just think it, Mr. Allardyce."

"Ye're always lyin'?"

"Eh ay.

I doubt I'll not walk again."

"I hope ye dinna suffer very much pain," he said kindly, and with such real sympathy in look and tone that Isie was led on to speak more of herself than with her reserved nature she often cared to do.

"Just at a time," she answered. "I'm never freely that I could say without some pain, but nae just excessive."

Again Mr. Allardyce paused for a few moments, then he

began. "I was to say to ye-if ye'll no be angry at me— that if there was anything-anything ye would like—or that would be of use to ye, the wye that ye are-anything one could get or do, to ye-if ye would let me know, ye would confair the greatest pleasure upon me, Sister!"

"Eh, so kind," said Isie, rather breathlessly. "But 'deed, Mr. Allardyce, I want for nothing. I've every care and attention here—they're all more than kind to me. I only hope I'll not lie so long to trouble them as my poor sister Jeanie, that's birried in Inverranna kirkyard. 'Deed I'm often sorry when I think how she was lyin' three years, and so few comforts and helps as she had, by what I have! ye're too good to think so much of me, Mr. Allardyce !" "I dinna see how that could be. I've nae forgotten that I owe my life to ye--and something mair maybe sin'syne." Isie had no words to reply to this.

But

"Well," he said, taking up his hat. "I'll require to go. I hope I'll not have fatigued ye."

Fatigue her! If those few minutes, during which he had been sitting opposite, close to her-looking at her with those kind compassionate eyes, speaking in that low gentle tone (it was very winning sometimes, as the manner of his countrymen not seldom is), if those minutes could have been lengthened indefinitely, Isie thought she might never know weariness again. Even during those brief minutes she had forgotten for the time all her pain and weakness, in the presence that was now and always like sunshine to her.

"No fear of your fatiguin' me," she said. "Thank you for comin' to see me."

"And thank you, for admittin' me. I was ill about ye knowin', ye see, an' I didn't know what wye I could let ye know."

"Thank you," said Isie again. "It's sort o' eased my mind-I wasna fit to keep fra' aye wonderin', ye ken. But I aye askit that it might turn out for good to ye, whatever. And I think the good LORD will have heard my prayer."

"Ye're ower mindful, Sister. It's done me good, I feel, speakin' to ye. I aye remember upo' your words, and try and comfort mysel' wi' them, when I'm doun about that, ye ken. I hadna minded as much as I should, or maybe I wouldna ha' taken a wrong step."