Maggie obeyed at once, and took Isy to the other end of the house, where the soutar had long ago given up his bed to her and the baby. When they had all breakfasted, the soutar and Maggie in the kitchen, and Isy and the bairnie in the ben en’, Maggie took her old place beside her father, and for a long time they worked without word spoken. “I doobt, father,” said Maggie at length, “I haena been atten’in til ye properly! I fear the bairnie ’s been garrin me forget ye!” “No a hair, dautie!” returned the soutar. “The needs o’ the little ane stude aye far afore mine, and _had_ to be seen til first! And noo that we hae the mither o’ ’im, we’ll get on faumous!—Isna she a fine cratur, and richt mitherlike wi’ the bairn? That was a’ I was concernt aboot! We’ll get her story frae her or lang, and syne we’ll ken a hantle better hoo to help her on! And there can be nae fear but, atween you and me, and the Michty at the back o’ ’s, we s’ get breid eneuch for the quaternion o’ ’s!” He laughed at the odd word as it fell from his mouth and the Acts of Apostles. Maggie laughed too, and wiped her eyes. Before long, Maggie recognized that she had never been so happy in her life. Isy told them as much as she could without breaking her resolve to keep secret a certain name; and wrote to Mr. Robertson, telling him where she was, and that she had found her baby. He came with his wife to see her, and so a friendship began between the soutar and him, which Mr. Robertson always declared one of the most fortunate things that had ever befallen him. “That soutar-body,” he would say, “kens mair aboot God and his kingdom, the hert o’ ’t and the w’ys o’ ’t, than ony man I ever h’ard tell o’—and _that_ heumble!—jist like the son o’ God himsel!”