She would have liked to talk to her grandmother about Edgar, but she did not venture to do more than wonder “what could be keeping him?” a question to which Mrs. Murray responded placidly that no doubt he was “drinking tea” with somebody at Loch Arroch Head. The old lady was not discomposed by Edgar’s absence as Jeanie was; and poor Jeanie, in the flutter and warmth of her feelings, could have cried with vexation at the contrast between her own agitated heart and this calm, which she thought indifference. Her grandmother “did not care.” “Oh, how could she help caring, and him so good to her!” poor Jeanie said to herself. And Bell went about her work out of doors, cheerily singing, in her full rustic voice, as she prepared the supper for the kye, and carried it out to the byre, coming and going in her strong shoes, with clink of pails, and loud talking now and then to Sandy, who was helping. Nobody cared but Jeanie that he was so late of coming home. Then she went upstairs with her grandmother, who was still an invalid, and helped her to bed, and read “the chapter” with which the day was always concluded; and put a great old stick, with a gold head, which had belonged to some ancestor, by the bedside, in order that Mrs. Murray, if she wanted anything, should “knock down,” for there were not many bells in the little farmhouse. The sitting-room was immediately below, and this was the recognised way at the Castle Farm of calling for the attendants. When this last duty was done, Jeanie was free for the night to “take her book” or “her seam,” and do as she pleased, for she had never had anything to do with “the beasts” or outdoor matters.