“Back to Carlisle?” Agnes looked at him wonderingly. “Oh, Archie, you will see mother and the bairns. I wish I were going with you.” “I wish in my heart you were,” he said unsteadily. “Will you come there to me after a while, Agnes, if I don’t come back? I’m going to be a meenister.” “A meenister!” Agnes broke into a laugh. “Then it was no joke when we called you the dominie.” Then her face clouded. “I’ll be missing you, Archie,” she said simply. “Ah, will ye, Agnes? I’m fain glad to have ye say so. Couldn’t ye go back there now to your mother, you and your father?” “Oh, no, no; we’ve come here and settled, and there will be enough for them now. Tell them so. I have written them, but who knows if they have the letter, and you will be going straight there, Archie. Tell them they can come now, they must come, and we’ll manage somehow. There’ll need to be more room, and oh, Archie, you’ll not be here to help us build.” The thought of this made the girl’s eyes moist, and she said again, “I’ll be missing ye sorely, Archie.” “Then if ye’ll not go back now, I’ll come for you. There’ll be other meeting-houses needed as the country fills up, and other meenisters for them, and I’ll no stay in the east.” Archie spoke eagerly. But Agnes had recovered herself; her emotion was not so very deep. “Don’t be too sure. One can’t tell what a year may bring forth,” she remarked sagely. “Will ye make me the promise, then?” “The promise?” “To wait till I come for you.” Agnes shook her head. “I’ll make no promises, lad. I’m too foolish a creature for a meenister’s wife.” “But ye’re so young; ye’ll sober down.” “I don’t want to.” Archie’s face fell, but he persisted. “Ye’ll be thinking that way now, but after a bit it’ll come easy.” “The promises of girls and boys are of no account,” said Agnes, with more perspicuity than one would have credited her with. “Didn’t you promise a year ago that when you were twenty-one you would build a home out here?” Archie looked troubled. “Ay, but circumstances--” “Yes, that’s just it; circumstances, and who knows what circumstances will come about in another year? I’ll make no promises till I see my mother again, that I told you before, and I keep to it.” “Then,” said Archie, with a little smile, “it behooves me to send your mother to you.” “Ah, but; and if you do that, I will be pleased.” “Then I will try to please ye. Don’t you think I am right, Agnes?” “To try to please me? Yes.” “I meant to follow the meenistry.” “I suppose so. Tell me all about it.” At this invitation, and with a hope for her dear sympathy to carry away as a memory, Archie poured forth his heart. Agnes listened soberly enough, but as he came to an end of his speech, she gave a little giggle. Archie frowned. “What is so funny?”