"What's this ye hae fetched hame in your hand the nicht?" cried the little wife sharply, as she saw her husband come up the loaning. "It's no ilka wife that wad be pleased to hae a grown family brocht in on her like this!" "Hoot, Mirren woman!" was all that Muckle Alick said, as he pushed Vara and Hugh in before him, Gavin nestling cosily in his arms the while. "Whaur gat ye them, Alick?" said Mirren, going forward to look at the bairn in his arms. "They are bonny weans and no that ill put on." Little Gavin was so content in the arms of Muckle Alick that he smiled. And his sweetness of expression struggling through the pinched look of hunger went right to the heart of Mirren, who, having no bairns of her own—"so far," as Muckle Alick remarked cautiously—had so much the more love for other people's. She turned on Vara, who stood looking on and smiling also. The little woman was almost fierce. "What has been done to this bairn that he has never grown?" said Mirren Douglas, wife of Muckle Alick. Vara flushed in her slow still way, at the imputation that she had not taken good care enough of her Gavin—to pleasure whom she would have given her life. "I did the best I could," she said, "whiles we had to sleep oot a' nicht, an' whiles I had nae milk to gie him." "Lassie! lassie!" cried Mirren Douglas, "what is this ye are tellin' me?" "The truth," said Vara Kavannah, quietly; "Gavin and Boy Hugh and me hae walked a' the road frae Edinburgh. We hae sleepit in the hills, and——" "But how cam' the bairn here?" asked Muckle Alick's fiercely tender little wife; "tell me quick!" "I hae carried Gavin a' the road!" said Vara, simply. "You, lassie!" cried Mirren, looking at the slip of pale girlhood before her, "it's juist fair unpossible!" "But I did carry him. He's no that heavy when ye get the shawl weel set." "O lassie, lassie, ye juist mak' me fair shamed," cried Mistress Douglas. "Alick, ye muckle bullock; what for are ye standin' there like a cuif? Gang ower to Mistress Fraser's and ask the lend o' her cradle. Thae bairns are gaun to bide——" "But, wife, hae ye considered?" Alick began. "Considered, my fit, did ye no hear me? Dinna stand hingin' there, balancin' on your soles like a show elephant lookin' aboot for cookies—gang, will ye!" The little wife stamped her foot and made a threatening demonstration. Whereupon Muckle Alick betook himself over the way to Mistress Fraser's, and he never smiled till he got past the gate of the front garden, in which Mirren kept her old-fashioned flowers. "I thocht that's what it wad come to," said Alick to himself, "when she saw the bairns. I wonder if she means to keep haud o' them a' thegither? She's been wearing her heart on the flooers a lang while, puir lassie. It wad be a farce if three bairns cam' hame at once to Sandyknowes after sae lang withoot ony, twa o' them walkin' cantily on their ain feet!"