“Oh, Mrs. Campbell, I am so sorry; I cannot tell you how sorry I am,” cried Matty--- and she spoke only the truth, and had real tears in her eyes--“to think that he should save my cousin again, and suffer so for his goodness. Don’t be angry with us--though, indeed, I should not wonder if you could not bear our very name--I am sure I could not, if I were you.” “Na, God forbid,” said the Mistress. She was but half-satisfied of the reality of the young lady’s professions, and this suspicion, so unusual to her, gave dignity to her speech. “It wasna you nor ony mortal person, but his own heart that moved my Colin. You could do an awfu’ deal,” said Colin’s mother, looking with a woman’s look of disapproving admiration on Matty’s pretty face, “but you couldna move my son like his ain generous will. He never was one to think of his ain--comfort--” continued Mrs. Campbell with a little shudder, for something in her throat prevented her from saying his life--“when a fellow creature was in danger. It was his ain heart that was to blame--if anything was to blame--and not you.” And the homely woman’s eyes went beyond her questioner with that same look which in Colin had so often baffled Miss Matty, showing that the higher spirit had gone past the lesser into its own element, where only its equals could follow. The girl was awed for the moment and humbled. Not for her poor sake, not for Harry Frankland, who was of no great account to anybody out of his immediate family--but because of his own nature, which would not permit him to see another perish, had Colin suffered. This thought, imperfectly as she understood it, stopped the voluble sympathy, pity and distress on Matty’s lips. She no longer knew what to say, and, after an awkward pause, could only stammer over her old common-places. “Oh, dear Mrs. Campbell, I am so sorry; I would give anything in the world to make him well again; and I only hope you won’t be angry with us,” said Matty, with a suppressed sob, which was partly fright and partly feeling. The Mistress came to herself at the sound of the girl’s voice.