And Helen Buchanan now could only snatch a momentary glance, from the little wicket gate, of the evening sun, as he went down beyond the hill, and could not linger to watch the golden mist fade into graver purple before the breath of night. She had no leisure now for sunset walks, no time to glean and gather in to her heart the glories of the grand sky and the dimmer tints of earth, and, eating angel’s bread, grow strong. Long labour through the whole bright day, labour at the sunsetting, labour in the fair, dim hours beyond; it was a hard life. “I have seen the boatmen cross the Firth, when the tawny waves were coming in like lions,” said Helen, as she bent over those weary breadths of linen, “and the wind was so high that the boat could bear no sail, and the current so strong that they could scarcely row; but there was something in their work--- I fancy I must call it excitement--which made it quite a different thing from safe, monotonous labour. I mind how it moved me--the dipping of the oars, which scarcely could enter the great, buoyant swell of water, the forcing forward of the boat, which did not seem to be _in_ the stream at all, but _on_ it; it makes one’s heart beat. I thought I should rather have been with Willie Thomson then, than when the Firth was as smooth as the wan water.” “You are not so brave as you think, Helen,” said her mother, smiling. “Willie Thomson would have found you a very timid passenger.” “Perhaps--if he was prosaic and understood me literally,” said Helen, “but I mean one’s heart rises: and in our poor little concerns, mother, I think we are in the boat, and the Firth is wild with his lion’s mane, and we are at the oars. Never mind the wind--I like it now, when I am used to the rocking--and those great, surly, bellowing waves--let us tame them, mother, it is what they were made for; and yonder is the shore!” Mrs Buchanan shook her head. This hand-to-hand struggle with the meagre strength of poverty was new to Helen. At their best time they had very little--so little that it was almost a marvel how the good, careful mother kept the boat afloat; but then their wants bore proportion to their means, and they were as much content with their spare living as if it had been the richest;--solitary women always have inexpensive households--and never before had there been such urgent need as now. It was well and happy that the young heart rose to meet it; the elder one had old experiences--memories of being worsted in the battle--of failing heart and sinking courage, and the armed man, Want, victorious over all. She sighed and was silent when her daughter spoke; but the storm roused the strength of Helen. It was the trumpet of her natural warfare, and she bent to her oar with a stout heart; the end was attainable--they saw the shore. “Father,” said Hope Oswald on one of those mellow September days, “Saunders Delvie is not well--will you come and see him?”