Gilchrist could say nothing in reply. She shook her head, though whether in agreement or in dissidence it would have been difficult to tell, and folded hem upon hem on her apron, with her eyes fixed upon that, as if it had been the most important of work. “I was wanting to speak,” she said, “when you had a moment to listen to me, about two young folk.” “What two young folk?” Miss Bethune’s eyes lighted up with a gleam of soft light, her face grew tender in every line. “But Dora is too young, she is far too young for anything of the kind,” she said. “Eh, mem,” cried Gilchrist, with a mingling of astonishment, admiration, and pity, “can ye think of nothing but yon strange young man?” “I am thinking of nothing but the bairn, the boy that was stolen away before he knew his right hand from his left, and now is come home.” “Aweel, aweel,” said Gilchrist, “we will just have to put up with it, as we have put up with it before. And sooner or later her mind will come back to what’s reasonable and true. I was speaking not of the young gentleman, or of any like him, but of the two who were up in the attics that you were wanting to save, if save them ye can. They are just handless creatures, the one and the other; but the woman’s no’ an ill person, poor thing, and would do well if she knew the way. And a baby coming, and the man just a weirdless, feckless, ill man.” “He cannot help it if he is ill, Gilchrist.” “Maybe no’,” said Gilchrist cautiously. “I’m never just so sure of that; but, anyway, he’s a delicate creature, feared for everything, and for a Christian eye upon him, which is the worst of all; and wherefore we should take them upon our shoulders, folk that we have nothing to do with, a husband and wife, and the family that’s coming----” “Oh, woman,” said her mistress, “if they have got just a step out of the safe way in the beginning, is that not reason the more for helping them back? And how can I ever know what straits _he_ might have been put to, and his mother ignorant, and not able to help him?” “Eh, but I’m thankful to hear you say that again!” Gilchrist cried. “Not that I can ever have that fear now, for a finer young man, or a more sweet ingenuous look! But no credit to any of us, Gilchrist. I’m thankful to those kind people that have brought him up; but it will always be a pain in my heart that I have had nothing to do with the training of him, and will never be half so much to him as that--that lady, who is in herself a poor, weakly woman, if I may say such a word.” “It is just a very strange thing,” said Gilchrist, “that yon lady is as much taken up about our Miss Dora as you are, mem, about the young lad.” “Ah!” said Miss Bethune, with a nod of her head, “but in a different way. Her mother’s sister--very kind and very natural, but oh, how different! I am to contrive to take Dora to see her, for I fear she is not long for this world, Gilchrist. The young lad, as you call him, will soon have nobody to look to but----”