“Thy fingers move so slowly that I fear thee is not well,” said Truelove kindly. “They that have nursed men with fever do often fall ill themselves. Will thee not see a physician?” MacLean, sanguine enough in hue, and no more gaunt of body than usual, worked languidly on. “I trust no lowland physician,” he said. “In my own country, if I had need, I would send to the foot of Dun-da-gu for black Murdoch, whose fathers have been physicians to the MacLeans of Duart since the days of Galethus. The little man in this parish,--his father was a lawyer, his grandfather a merchant; he knows not what was his great-grandfather! There, the shoe is untied! If I came every day to your father’s house, and if your mother gave me to drink of her elder-flower wine, and if I might sit on the sunny doorstep and watch you at your spinning, I should, I think, recover.” He slipped upon her foot the shoe of black cloth. Truelove regarded it gravely. “’Tis not too small, after all,” she said. “And does thee not think it more comely than these other, with their silly pomp of colored heels and blossoms woven in the silk?” She indicated with her glance the vainglorious row upon the bench beside her; then looked down at the little foot in its sombre covering and sighed. “I think that thy foot would be fair in the shoe of Donald Ross!” cried the storekeeper, and kissed the member which he praised. Truelove drew back, her cheeks very pink, and the dimples quite uncertain whether to go or stay. “Thee is idle in thy behavior,” she said severely. “I do think that thee is of the generation that will not learn. I pray thee to expeditiously put back my own shoe, and to give me in a parcel the callimanco pair.” MacLean set himself to obey, though with the expedition of a tortoise. Crisp autumn air and vivid sunshine pouring in at window and door filled and lit the store. The doorway framed a picture of blue sky, slow-moving water, and ragged landing; the window gave upon crimson sumac and the gold of a sycamore. Truelove, in her gray gown and close white cap, sat in the midst of the bouquet of colors afforded by the motley lining of the Fair View store, and gazed through the window at the riotous glory of this world. At last she looked at MacLean. “When, a year ago, thee was put to mind this store, and I, coming here to buy, made thy acquaintance,” she said softly, “thee wore always so stern and sorrowful a look that my heart bled for thee. I knew that thee was unhappy. Is thee unhappy still?”