Happily the moon was now up, so that Andrew was soon able to find the things they had both dropped in their haste, and Maggie had soon wrapped the baby in the winsey petticoat she had been carrying. Andrew took up his loaf and his other packages, and they set out again for Bogsheuch, Maggie’s heart all but overwhelmed with its exultation. Had the precious thing been twice the weight, so exuberant was her feeling of wealth in it that she could have carried it twice the distance with ease, although the road was so rough that she went in constant terror of stumbling. Andrew gave now and then a queer chuckle at the ludicrousness of their home-coming, and every second minute had to stop and pick up one or other of his many parcels; but Maggie strode on in front, full of possession, and with the feeling of having now at last entered upon her heavenly inheritance; so that she was quite startled when suddenly they came in sight of the turf cottage, and the little window in which a small cresset-lamp was burning. Before they reached it the door opened, and Eppie appeared with an overflow of question and anxious welcome. “What on earth—” she began. “Naething but a bonny wee bairnie, whause mither has tint it!” at once interrupted and answered Maggie, flying up to her, and laying the child in her arms. Mrs. Cormack stood and stared, now at Maggie, and now at the bundle that lay in her own arms. Tenderly searching in the petticoat, she found at last the little one’s face, and uncovered the sleeping child. “Eh the puir mither!” she said, and hurriedly covered again the tiny countenance. “It’s mine!” cried Maggie. “I faund it honest!” “Its mither may ha’ lost it honest, Maggie!” said Eppie. “Weel, its mither can come for’t gien she want it! It’s mine till she dis, ony gait!” rejoined the girl. “Nae doobt o’ that!” replied the old woman, scarcely questioning that the infant had been left to perish by some worthless tramp. “Ye’ll maybe hae’t langer nor ye’ll care to keep it!” “That’s no vera likly,” answered Maggie with a smile, as she stood in the doorway, in the wakeful night of the northern summer: “it’s ane o’ the Lord’s ain lammies ’at he cam to the hills to seek. He’s fund this ane!” “Weel, weel, my bonnie doo, it sanna be for me to contradick ye!—But wae’s upo’ me for a menseless auld wife! come in; come in: the mair welcome ’at ye’re lang expeckit!—But bless me, An’rew, what hae ye dune wi’ the cairt and the beastie?” In a few words, for brevity was easy to him, Andrew told the story of their disaster. “It maun hae been the Lord’s mercy! The puir beastie bude to suffer for the sake o’ the bairnie!”