They left Glasgow the next day; for neither Agnes nor Rose could bear to remain in this house, so familiar to them of old; and they did not return to Mrs. Rodger’s on their way home; but when Miss Aggie married the lumbering lodger, and came to be settled on the other side of the Firth, at Alloa, and received her sister as a visitor, Miss Jeanie made a pilgrimage to Allenders, and told them, with tears in her eyes, that Johnnie, now a clerk with a Port Dundas merchant, had said to her, that _she_ should never want while he had anything, and had given her money to buy the expensive unsuitable upper garment she wore. Poor Miss Jeanie, with her vanities and simplicities, never discovered that he owed _her_ gratitude; but for these words of kindness she was tearfully grateful to him. The month at Ayr passed very quietly. In this winter weather Uncle Sandy’s little company of workers could no longer visit the leafless garden; and though there was sometimes a great fire made in the kitchen, and a special lamp lighted for them, yet their own fireside, the old man thought, was the most suitable place for them now. So the family were almost perfectly alone; left to compose themselves into those quiet days which were but the beginning of a subdued and chastened life. And Uncle Sandy did for them now, what Martha was wont to do through the terrible time which preceded Harry’s death. He read to them sometimes;--sometimes he was himself their book and reader; and from his long experience, the young hearts, fainting under this great sorrow, learned how many trials life can live through, and were unwillingly persuaded that the present affliction would not kill them, as they sometimes hoped it might; but must lighten, perhaps must pass away. But they clung the closer to their sorrow, and defied the very chance of returning gladness; and Agnes cut away the curls of her bright hair, and said she would wear this widow’s cap her whole life through; and Rose grew sick at sounds of laughter, and believed she would never smile again. CHAPTER XX. A gloomy piece this morning with it brings; The sun for sorrow will not show his head. ROMEO AND JULIET. IT was December, cold and dreary, when the family returned to Allenders. Their very return was a renewal of the first sorrow to both themselves and Martha. They came, and Harry was not there to welcome them; they had never before felt so bitterly his absent place; they came, but Harry came not with them--and Martha’s very voice of welcome was choked with her anguish for the dead.