Mrs. Dr. Dewar returned to her seat--throwing back her head with an indignant sense of the highest warrant for her own conduct. But when she resumed her seat, Anne began to say softly: “I thought you had come to me with maybe a word of kindness. I thought that maybe my mother--was yearning for a sight of me as me for her--and to see my bairns. Oh, it would do her heart good to see the bairns! It would add on years to her life. What are ye all thinking of that ye cannot see that she’s dwining and pining for a pleasant house and a cheerful life? David said it before--and he was most willing to be at all the charges--but they would not listen to him, and no doubt it’s a great deal worse now.” “If you are meaning my mother, she is no worse,” said Kirsteen. “She is just about the same. Robbie has gone away to India like the rest; and she just bore it as well as could be expected. I have not heard,” said the girl, feeling the corners of her mouth quiver and a choking in her throat, “how she’s borne this.” Both of them had the feeling that their own departure must have affected the invalid more strongly than any other. “But she has not heard about your children, Anne. She would have said something.” Anne’s lips were quivering too. She was much wounded by this assertion. She shook her head. “My mother’s no one,” she said, “that tells everything--especially what’s nearest to her heart. Ye may be sure she knows--but she wouldna maybe be ready to speak of it to young lassies like you.” Kirsteen thought this argument feeble, but she said nothing in reply. “And so Robbie’s away,” said Anne. “He was just a bit laddie that I put to his bed like my own. Eh, but time goes fast, when ye hear of them growing up that ye can mind when they were born. I tell David our own will just be men and women before we think.” This thought brought a smile to her face, and much softening of the disappointment. “Oh, but I would like my mother to see them!” she said.