Four o’clock in the morning, the darkest moment of the winter night! The little troubled feminine party withdrew to the warm kitchen, the only place in the house where there was warmth and light, to consult what they should do. It had been Kirsteen’s intention to leave her father’s house at once as she had come, her duty being over. But Jeanie’s anxious entreaty bursting forth among the tears in which her simple sorrow found relief, and a sense of the charge she had seemed to take from her mother’s hand like some office and trust conferred, changed the mood of Kirsteen. Her father had endured her presence, her young sister needed her; Anne was her chief hindrance in these circumstances. But even for Anne the bitterness of death was past. It was all over, and she had sustained little harm; all that any one could ask of her now was to get away as quietly as possible; the worst was over; Anne was capable of enjoying the cup of tea which Marg’ret made haste to prepare. She even was persuaded to “try an egg” with it, as she had “a journey before her.” It is true that for a moment she was thrown into fresh despair by the suggestion that Kirsteen was not to accompany her home. “Oh, what will I do?” cried Anne. “Walk that awful way in the dark, and take up the chaise at the end, and all alone, with nobody with me? Oh, Kirsteen, if I had known, you would never have got me to leave my family, me that never goes a step without my man!” “It’s a great pity,” said Marg’ret, “that you put Mrs. Doctor Dewar to all that trouble, Kirsteen.” “And so it is,” said Anne. “I told her so; I said I was not fit for it, to be trailed away to the Highlands at a moment’s notice. And my poor mother that was too far gone to mind, or to ask about my family. And what good could I do? But you might as well speak to the rocks as to Kirsteen when she has taken a thing into her head. And now what is to become of me?” CHAPTER XV.