And Milly wept a few ready tears at the idea that May might be ill. Thus Marjory was compelled to give up her headache; but her heartache, which nobody knew of, was more difficult to get rid of. She went no more to the Spindle, but strayed listlessly along the country roads, which are not interesting, and tried her best to forget all about an encounter which had interested her so much at first, and had wounded her so unduly. Both the interest and the vexation were, she felt, excessive--a trick of the nerves, a weakness of the body, a tendency to emotion, produced by the strain she had sustained for so long. A whole week had elapsed in this way, when one day she was told that a woman wanted to see her; “a decent woman, but a poor body,” was the description of the maid. Marjory went down to the court to see this visitor, expecting some applicant from the poor quarter of the town, or other petitioner. She was surprised and excited to see that it was the woman who had caused her so much vexation, the mistress of the cottage at the Spindle, who stood with an anxious face, expecting her approach. “Oh, mem,” she cried, almost as soon as Marjory came in sight. “Come back, come back, and see yon poor lass! She’s breaking her heart. She’s been worse than ever, crying for you night and day, and since she heard that I had tell’t ye, she’s had no peace in her mind. All her cry is, ‘Bring back the leddy, bring back the leddy! I canna die till I’ve seen the leddy.’ We’ve tried to pacify her a’ we could. We’ve said nae doubt you were gane away; folk come to St. Andrews for the sea-bathing, and then they go away; or we said nae doubt the leddy finds it’s ower long a walk; but naething would content her; and at last I came away, seeing it was my fault, to try if I could find you. And oh, mem, maybe I was hard-hearted yon day. We mauna be unforgiving. She’s but a bairn, so to speak, and it was a gentleman that deluded her with his flattering tongue. When it’s a gentleman it’s a’ the harder on a poor lass; and they have such deceiving ways. When I was young myself, there was a student lad, a minister’s son, no less----” “What does she want with me?” said Marjory, coldly. “Oh, mem, how can I tell ye? whiles a poor creature like that will take a yearning; it may be for one thing, it may be for another. Sometimes it’s for meat and drink; but this poor thing is no of that kind. You’ve spoken to her soft and kindly, as I dinna doubt is your nature, and she canna bide that you should think ill of her.” “How can I do other than think ill of her,” said Marjory, “after what you said?”