Marion lingered outside, wiping away the tears that would keep flowing. For the one question, “What can be amiss wi’ Jamie?” had returned upon her, haunting and harrying her heart; and with it had come the idea, though vague and formless, that their good-will to the wandering outcast might perhaps do something to make up for whatever ill thing Jamie might have done. At last, instead of entering the parlour after them, she turned away to the kitchen, and made haste to get ready their supper. Isy sank back in the wide sofa, lost in relief; and the minister, when he saw her look of conscious refuge and repose, said to himself— “She is feeling as we shall all feel when first we know nothing near us but the Love itself that was before all worlds!—when there is no doubt more, and no questioning more!” But the heart of the farmer was full of the old uncontent, the old longing after the heart of his boy, that had never learned to cry “_Father!_” But soon they sat down to their meal. While they ate, hardly any one spoke, and no one missed the speech or was aware of the silence, until the bereaved Isobel thought of her child, and burst into tears. Then the mother who sorrowed with such a different, and so much bitterer sorrow, divining her thought and whence it came, rose, and from behind her said— “Noo ye maun jist come awa wi’ me, and I s’ pit ye til yer bed, and lea’ ye there!—Na, na; say gude nicht to naebody!—Ye’ll see the minister again i’ the mornin!” With that she took Isy away, half-carrying her close-pressed, and half-leading her; for Marion, although no bigger than Isy, was much stronger, and could easily have carried her. That night both mothers slept well, and both dreamed of their mothers and of their children. But in the morning nothing remained of their two dreams except two hopes in the one Father. When Isy entered the little parlour, she found she had slept so long that breakfast was over, the minister smoking his pipe in the garden, and the farmer busy in his yard. But Marion heard her, and brought her breakfast, beaming with ministration; then thinking she would eat it better if left to herself, went back to her work. In about five minutes, however, Isy joined her, and began at once to lend a helping hand. “Hoot, hoot, my dear!” cried her hostess, “ye haena taen time eneuch to make a proaper brakfast o’ ’t! Gang awa back, and put mair intil ye. Gien ye dinna learn to ate, we s’ never get ony guid o’ ye!” “I just can’t eat for gladness,” returned Isy. “Ye’re that good to me, that I dare hardly think aboot it; it’ll gar me greit!—Lat me help ye, mem, and I’ll grow hungry by dennertime!”