"O Mary!" said her mistress, "how often hae I telled you no to set your mind on the vainities o' this wicked world?" "An' whatna ane do ye pay me for?—to keep mind o' texts or to feed the calves?" asked the byre lass, pertinently. "Mary," said the other, ignoring the argument, "the text was this: 'I will both lay me down and sleep'—dod, but I declare I forget the rest o't," she concluded, breaking down with some ignominy. "In the land o' the leal," suggested Mary Bell, either wickedly or with a real desire to help. Her superior promptly accepted the emendation. "That's it!" she said. "Is it no bonny to look at thae bairns and mind the text, 'I will both lay me down and sleep, in the land o' the leal'?" "I'll wauken them," said practical Mary Bell, "and bring them into the hoose for some breakfast." "Na, na," said her mistress, "ye maunna do that. What wad the guidman say? Ye ken he canna be doin' wi' folk that gang the country. A wee drap o' yestreen's milk noo—or the scrapins o' the parritch pot!" "Aye," said Mary Bell, "'in the land o' the leal.' Ye had better gang ben and look up the text, mistress; I'll attend to the bairns." "Aye, do that," said the good wife, with perfect unconsciousness of Mary Bell's sarcasm, "but be sparin'. Mind ye, this is hard times for farm folk! And we canna spend gear and graith recklessly on unkenned bairns." "Ye will be free o' that crime, mistress," murmured Mary, as her mistress took her way into the house; "gin ye could tak' a' that ye hae saved wi' ye, what a bien and comfortable doon-sitting wad ye no hae in heeven! Itherwise, I'm nane sae sure—in spite o' your texts." Then Mary sat down and took the children one by one, touching their faces to make them waken. Vara sat up suddenly, with wild eyes and a cry of fear. In her terror she clasped the baby so hard that it waked and cried. With the other hand she brushed away the elf locks about her own eyes. But her heart stilled its fluttering as she caught the kindly eyes of Mary Bell, set in a brown sun-coarsened face of broad good humour. "O," said Vara, "I thought ye were my mother!" And Mary Bell, who, though a byre lass and daughter of toil, was born with the gentle heart of courtesy within her, refrained from asking why this wandering girl should be so greatly afraid of her own mother. "Are you hungry?" she said, instead. And little Boy Hugh awoke, rolled out of the hay, and shook himself like a young puppy. He stretched his arms wide, clasping and unclasping his fingers. "I'm _that_ hungry!" he said, as if he had heard Mary Bell's words in a dream. "That's answer enough!" said the byre lass. "Certes, ye are a bonny laddie; come here to me." And Mary Bell, who was born to love children and to bear them, snatched him up and kissed him warmly and roughly. But Hugh wriggled out of her arms, and as soon as he found himself on the ground he wiped his mouth deliberately and ungratefully with the back of his hand.