“Oh, yes--they all said it was folly, and maybe I would say so, too, if I saw another pair. But for all that it was not folly, Lily. He wanted me to run away with him and say no word. And, oh, but I was in a terrible swither what to do. It’s peetiful to be so young: you have no experience; you cannot answer a word when they preach you down with their old saws. I thought upon my mother that was weakly, and Tom and Jamie giving a good deal of trouble. And at the last I would not. It was my moment,” she said softly, with a sigh, “and I had a perception of it; but I was frightened, Lily, and, oh, so silly and young!” “Helen, you could not, you should not, have done it. It would have been impossible! It would have been wrong!” Helen only shook her head with a melancholy smile. “And then he came back,” she said, “at the end of the five years. Never, never, Lily, may you have the feeling I had when I saw Alick Duff again. Something said in me: ‘Eelen, Eelen, that is your work!’ The light had gone from his eyes, and the open look; his bonnie brow was all lined. He had grown to be the man you saw to-day. But what would that have mattered to me? He had but the more need of me. Alas, alas! my mother was dead, the boys all adrift, and my father taken with his illness, and what could I do then? He pleaded sore and my heart went with him. Oh, I fear he had been wild, wild! He came back without a shilling in his pocket or a prospect before him. The old laird was still living and went about with a brow like thunder. He looked as if he hated every man that named Alick’s name; but them that knew best said he was the favorite still of all the sons. And Mrs. Duff, that had been so proud, that would not have the minister’s daughter for her bonnie boy, she came to me herself, Lily. You see, it was not me only that thought it. She said: ‘Eelen, if you will marry him, you will save my bonnie lad yet.’ But I could not, I could not, Lily. How could I leave my own house, that had trouble in it, and nobody to make a stand but me?” “They were selfish and cruel!” cried Lily; “they would have sacrificed you for the hope of saving an ill man!”