Mrs. Catherine rose, and went to the window. The sky was heavy and dark, lowering like some great gloomy forehead. It was laden with snow--large, dilated flakes, like those of fire upon Dante's burning sand were falling one by one, upon the white earth. It was a feeding storm. "Bonnie weather for the sea-side," said Mrs. Catherine, returning to her seat. "You must go with a good excuse, child, not with an apparent falsehood on your tongue. 'February fills the dyke, either with black or white.' We are getting both of them this month. March is a blustering, wintry time, when there is little to be seen or heard tell of about the coast but shipwreck and disaster. April is pleasant in a landward place. You _may_ go in April; it is too soon, but for the necessity's sake you may go then--not a day sooner, at your peril. You are able and well? I understand your look, child--hold your peace. I would give a good year of my life--and I have few of them to spare, seeing I am trysted to abide in my present tabernacle, if the Lord will tell Archie Sutherland has won back his land--to see Norman Rutherford a free man on Oranside again; but I will not consent to put you in peril, child, for any prospective good. I say you shall go in April. I put my interdict upon you venturing before. I will give you your freedom in the last blast of the borrowing days. Not an hour sooner. Now, will you abide by my judgment, or will you not?" Anne looked out uneasily. The heavy sky slowly beginning to discharge its load--the earth everywhere covered with that white, warm mantle--the gradually increasing storm. She submitted. Now, at least, it was impossible to go. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Catherine took her into another room, and interrogated her concerning her pecuniary arrangements for the journey. Anne evaded the question, laughed at the scanty family of shillings in her own purse, and spoke of Lewis. "Child, you are a gowk after all," said Mrs. Catherine. "The lad needs all his siller for himself. If there is anything to spare, let him use it on bonnie dies to dress his little bride withal--though the bairn Alison has a natural grace, and needs them less than most. But if you say a word about siller to Lewis, you shall never enter my door again. Mind! It is my wont to keep my word." Within a week after this conversation, the last half of Mrs. Catherine's prodigal outfit was hurriedly sent to Glasgow, where Archibald Sutherland had made his first beginning with success and honor. The cold lodging, to whose narrow and solitary fireside he returned, night after night alone--the fat, Glasgow landlady, whose broad, good-humored face began to smile upon him with a familiar kindliness, which the broken laird blamed himself for almost shrinking from--the life of strange labor--he was getting accustomed to them all.