Tibbie had come out to bask a little, and, in the dark warmth of the material sun, to worship that Sun whose light she saw in the hidden world of her heart, and who is the Sun of all the worlds; to breathe the air, which, through her prison-bars, spoke of freedom; to give herself room to long for the hour when the loving Father would take her out of the husk which infolded her, and say to her: "_See, my child_." With the rest of the travailing creation, she was groaning in hopeful pain--not in the pain of the mother, but in the pain of the child, soon to be forgotten in the following rest. If my younger readers want to follow Kate and Alec home, they will take it for a symptom of the chill approach of "unlovely age," that I say to them: 'We will go home with Tibbie and Annie, and hear what they say. I like better to tell you about ugly blind old Tibbie than about beautiful young Kate.--But you shall have your turn. Do not think that we old people do not care for what you care for. We want more than you want--a something without which what you like best cannot last.' "What did the coch stop for, Annie, lass?" asked Tibbie, as soon as the mail had driven on. "It's a lady gaein to Mistress Forbes's at Howglen." "Hoo ken ye that?" "'Cause Alec Forbes rade oot to meet her, and syne took her hame i' the gig." "Ay! ay! I thought I heard mair nor the ordinar nummer o' horse-feet as the coch cam' up. He's a braw lad, that Alec Forbes�isna he?" "Ay is he," answered Annie, sadly; not from jealousy, for her admiration of Alec was from afar; but as looking up from purgatorial exclusion to the paradise of Howglen, where the beautiful lady would have all Mrs Forbes, and Alec too, to herself. The old woman caught the tone, but misinterpreted it. "I doobt," she said, "he winna get ony guid at that college." "What for no?" returned Annie. "I was at the school wi' him, and never saw onything to fin' fau't wi'." "Ow na, lassie. Ye had naething to do fin'in' fau't wi' him. His father was a douce man, an' maybe a God-fearin' man, though he made but sma' profession. I think we're whiles ower sair upo' some o' them that promises little, and maybe does the mair. Ye min' what ye read to me afore we cam' oot thegither, aboot the lad that said till's father, _I go not_; but afterwards he repented and gaed?" "Ay." "Weel, I think we'll gang hame noo." They rose, and went, hand in hand, over the bridge, and round the end of its parapet, and down the steep descent to the cottage at its foot, Tibbie's cloak shining all the way, but, now that the sun was down, with a chastened radiance. When she had laid it aside, and was seated on her low wooden chair within reach of her spinning-wheel, "Noo," said Tibbie, "ye'll jist read a chapter till me, lassie, afore ye gang hame, and syne I s' gang to my bed. Blin'ness is a sair savin' o' can'les."