It seemed that her fate had been born with her. The proud and passionate temper to be thwarted and crossed at every turn--the vehement ambitious mind, to be disgraced and humbled--and with those arrows in her heart, she was now fighting with herself a greater fight than she had ever hazarded before, subduing herself to herself, and to the Higher One, who thus painfully had brought back the rebel soul to His allegiance. It was hard to subdue the old passion--the old pride--but she had begun to sanctify her contest now, when it had come to the bitterest. No other trial could have been so hard to her as this; it struck at her very life. Misfortunes against which she could struggle would have been happy discipline to Martha, but to look on helplessly while these elements of ruin were developing in the life of her brother; to stand by and see him fall lower and lower into the poor and petty sins which she despised--to watch the slow coming of disgrace and wretchedness which she could not lift a finger to avert--who can wonder that the proud spirit was chafed into passions of fierce anger sometimes, and sometimes into very despair; but Martha never spoke of what she suffered--she only said “Poor Harry!” “Shall I read my uncle’s letter now?” asked Rose, when Cuthbert was gone. “Surely,” said Harry, whom some slight incident had restored to perfect good-humour. “Surely, Rosie, let us hear what the old man says.” “I write this to let you know that I am quite well,” read Rose, “though a little troubled with the rheumatism in my right arm, which always comes on about the turn of the year, as you will all mind; and I am very sorry to hear of Harry’s accident; but there is less matter for lamentation, it being gotten in a good way, as I have no doubt Martha will mind. The town crier, Sandy Proudfoot, broke his leg at Hogmanay, and it’s never mended yet; but I cannot see what better the daidling body had to expect, it being a thing well known, that when the accident was gotten, he was as he should not have been, which is a great comfort in respect of Harry. I hope all the rest of you are well and doing well, and desire to see some of you at Ayr as soon as ever it can be made convenient. If Violet is inclined to be delicate, send her out to me for a change. The guard of the coach would take good care of her, and I will pay her passage myself. I hope she is minding her lessons and learning to help the rest with the opening, and that Rose is eident, as the cottar says, and minds her duty duly, and that Harry is steady and ’grees with his wife. As for Martha, seeing she knows what is right, better than I can tell her, I have nothing to say, but that I hope she keeps up to the mark, which she knows, and has her own judgment in her favour--of which, if she is sure, I know she will be feared for no other in the world. And so I remain, my dear