"What are you thinking of, Anne?" said Marjory. "What makes you dream and brood thus? There you have been gazing out these two minutes, as fixedly as if you saw something of the greatest interest. I am quite sure you don't know what you are looking at, and, had I come forward suddenly, and asked you what river that was, you would have faltered and deliberated before you could be certain it was the Oran. I know you would. What is it all about?" Anne smiled. "It is not so easy to tell. You put comprehensive questions, Marjory." "And here are you making yourself ill!" exclaimed Marjory, impetuously; "dreaming over something which no one is to know; walking alone, and sitting alone, and defrauding yourself of proper rest and relaxation, and altogether, as plainly as possible endeavoring to manufacture a consumption. I say, Anne Ross, what is it all about? I have a right to know--we all have a right to know; you don't belong to yourself. If you were not Anne Ross, of Merkland, I should begin to suspect we had some love-sickness on our hands." "And if you were any one else but Marjory Falconer, of Falcon's Craig, I should be very angry," said Anne, smiling. "Never anything reasonable from you since you came home; never a call upon any one but Mrs. Melder. Nothing but patient looks, and paleness, and reveries! I don't see why we should submit to it, Anne Ross. I protest, in the name of the parish--it is a public injustice!" "Very well, Marjory," said Anne. "Pray be so good as sit down now, and do not scold so bitterly. Did you come all the way from Falcon's Craig for the sole purpose of bringing me under discipline?" Marjory Falconer put up her hands to her cheeks to hide the vehement blushes which rushed back again; then, as she recalled the story she had come to tell, its ludicrous points overcame the shame, and she laughed with characteristic heartiness. There was not, after all, so very much to be ashamed of; but, as everybody exaggerated the extravagance of everything done by Marjory Falconer, so Marjory Falconer felt herself bitterly humiliated in the recollection of _escapades_ which young ladies of much greater pretensions would only have laughed at. "What is it, Marjory?" said Anne. The fit of shame returned. "Oh! not much. Only I have been making a fool of myself again." Anne expressed no wonder; she only drew her friend into a chair, and asked: "How?" "I am going to tell you. I came here at once, you see, lest some one else should be before me with the news. Ah! and there you sit as cool and calm as though I were not entering my purgatory!" "I don't want to tease you further," said Anne, "or I should say that when people make purgatories for themselves, it behoves them to endure patiently."