A philosopher! But how have these tears found their way to his face? Somehow he cannot look on this little speaker—cannot perceive her small brother laying his cheek upon her breast, without a new emotion which ought to have no place in the mind of an observing moralist whose thought is of cause and effect. Again he lays his hand upon her head—so kindly that Jessie looks up with a shy smile—and says, “You are used to say your prayers?” “I aye do’t every nicht.” Jessie looks up again wistfully, wondering with a sudden pity. Can it be possible that he does not say his prayers, gentleman though he be? “Say them here, little girl—I would like to hear your prayers”—and his own voice sounds reverent, low, as one who feels a great presence near. But Jessie falters and cries—does not know what to answer, though it is very hard to contend against the impulse of instant obedience. “Oh, I dinna like—I canna say them out-by to a man,” she says in great trouble, clasping and unclasping her hands. “I just mind a’body, and little Davie—and give my soul to Christ to keep,” added the little girl solemnly, “for fear I shouldna wake the morn.” There is a little silence. She thinks this kindly stranger is angry with her, and cries; but it is only a something of strong unusual emotion, which he must swallow down. “Now, you must wake up little Davie, and I will take you home. Is it far? You do not know, poor little guardian. Come away—it is near Brigend? Well, we will manage to get there. Come, little fellow, rouse up and give me your hand.” But Davie, very wroth at such a sudden interruption of his repose, shook his little brown clenched hand in the stranger’s face instead, and would hold by no other but his sister. So in this order they went on, Jessie, with much awe, permitting her hand to be held in Randall’s, and sleepy Davie dragging her back at the other side. They went on at a very different pace from Randall’s former rate of walking—threading their encumbered way with great difficulty through the moorland path—but by-and-by, to the general comfort, emerged once more upon the high-road, and near the cheerful light from a cottage door. And here he would pause to ask for some refreshment for the lost children, but does not fail to glance in first at the cottage window. This woman sitting before the fire has a face he knows, and she is rolling up a heavy white-faced baby, and moving with a kind of monotonous rock, back and forward upon her seat. But there is not a murmur of the mother-song—instead, she is slowly winding up to extremest aggravation a little girl in a short-gown and apron, who stands behind her in a flood of tears, and whose present state of mind suggests no comfort to her, but to break all the “pigs” (_Anglicè_ crockery) in the house and run away.