Rowena found it hard to lie patiently under this blow. Mysie, with her laughing eyes and active spirits to be stretched on a bed of suffering! It brought an ache to her heart as she thought of her. She longed to rise up from her bed and go off to her. Granny was loud in denunciation of Edinburgh schools. "The wee lassie hasna the constitootion for that freezin' toon. I aye was once awa' there, an' niver shall I forget et. I cudna keep body and sperrit together. 'Tis the Highlands for soft sweet air, an' winds that blaw aisy, not wi' knives piercin' into your bones!" Rowena could only write her sympathy and possess her soul in patience. She got a wire one day, when Mysie's life was in danger, and then another to say she was pulling through. Christmas found Mysie still very ill, and her father in an Edinburgh hotel, learning day by day how much he loved his child. And then when Mysie was quite convalescent, her father wrote that he was bringing her home. Rowena wrote promptly: "Will you let Granny and me have her here, to pet her and nurse her back to health again? She is not too fond of that worthy housekeeper of yours, and I should love to have her." By return of post she heard from the General: "I can't say how good I think it of you! There is no one I would have her with more willingly. I have business in town, and did not want to return just yet. I will bring her down myself the first day the doctor says she can travel." And so one day, a very frail white little Mysie arrived, but her eyes were blazing with delight and rapture. When Rowena's arms were round her, she looked up into her face with passionate devotion. "I've never had anyone to talk to like you! And I've been just sick with wanting you and the glen and the loch!" "Keep a bit of your heart for your old father," said General Macdonald. His face looked worn and weary, but Rowena saw that he had improved in health and spirits. His step was brisker, he held himself more alertly. Mysie looked up at him affectionately. "Dad has been so kind," she informed Rowena; "he used to play halma with me in bed, and told me stories, almost as good as yours." When she had been packed off to bed, her father began to talk about her. "She has not the constitution for a town life, and the doctors advised me to let her go easily for the next year. The schoolmistress said she was, if anything, too eager and quick over her lessons; but her appetite failed, and she had constant headaches; and then, in this last spell of extreme cold, she did not seem to have the strength to withstand it. I don't want to lose her. Do advise me. What shall I do? Not try another governess?" Rowena laughed. "Let me have her. We shall be company for each other, and then you roam the world as you will. I don't believe you will settle down here."