“Weel,” said Mrs. Macfarlane, “ye ken your ain affairs best. But there’s sturdy beggars on the road, and maybe ye’ll wish ye had ta’en my offer before you win there.” Kirsteen thought she never would sleep for the aching of her limbs when she first laid herself down in the hard bed which was all the little Highland inn, or even the best houses in Scotland, afforded in that period. Her mind was silenced by this strange physical inconvenience, so that she was quiescent in spirit and conscious of little except her pangs of fatigue. Youth, however, was stronger than all her pangs, and the influence of the fresh mountain air, though charged with damp, in which she had pursued her journey--and she slept with the perfect abandon and absolute repose of her twenty years, never waking from the time she laid her head upon the pillow until she was awakened by Eelen, the Highland maid, whom she opened her eyes to find standing over her with the same admiring looks as on the previous evening. “Your hair will be like the red gold and your skin like the white milk,” said Eelen; “and its chappit acht, and it’s time to be wakening.” Kirsteen did not spring from her bed with her usual alertness, for she was stiff with her first day’s travels. But she rose as quickly as was possible, and got down stairs to share the porridge of a weakly member of the family who was indulged in late hours, and had a little cream to tempt her to consume the robust food. “I would have given ye some tea but for Jamie,” said Mrs. Macfarlane, “maybe he’ll take his parritch when he sees you supping yours with sic a good heart.” Though she was thus used as an example Kirsteen took leave of the kind innkeeper with a sense of desolation as if she were once more leaving home. “’Deed, I just wish ye could bide, and gie the bairns their lessons and please a’ body with your pleasant face,” the landlady said. Kirsteen went on her way with a “piece” in her pocket and many good wishes.