“Mem,” said Katrin, “my dear, you’ll excuse me; I must just say the truth. It’s an awfu’ thing to deceive, as you say, and well I ken it was never your wyte. But the worst of it is that when you begin you cannot end. You just have to go on. I’m no saying one thing or another. It’s no my business, if it wasna that I just think more of you than one mortal creature should think of another. Oh! just take thought and take counsel! The maister is an old man. You’ve beguiled him with your winsome ways just as you’ve beguiled us a’. Can I see a thing wrong you do, whatever it is? And yet I have a glimmerin’ o’ sense between whiles. If he’s looking for you back to be his bonnie Lily and his companion, and syne sees you come in with a bairn in your arms and another man’s name, what will the auld man do? Oh, mem, the dear bairn, God bless him, and grant that you may soon have him in your airms! But if you hold by the auld gentleman and his life and comfort, for God’s sake take thought! for that is in it, too.” “There is nothing, nothing,” cried Lily, “that should keep a mother from her bairn! You are a kind woman, Katrin, but you’ve never had a bairn. When once I get him here, how can I ever give him up again?” she said, straining her arms to her breast as if the child was within them. Beenie wept behind her mistress’s shoulder, overwhelmed with sympathy, but Katrin shook her head. “When you see Mr. Lumsden there, and go over it all----” Lily’s face became instantly as if the windows of her mind had been closed up. Her lips straightened, her eyes became blank. She said nothing, but turned away, not looking at either of them nor saying a word. “And it was no me breathed his name or as much as thought upon him,” Beenie said a little later in an aggrieved tone, when she had rejoined Katrin down stairs. “It was me that breathed his name, and I’ll do it again till some heed is paid to what I say. We should maybe have refused yon day to be his witnesses. But being sae, Beenie, the burden is on you and me as well as on him. They should have owned each other and spoke the truth from that day. But now that it has all gone so far and no a whisper risen, and the countryside just as innocent as if they were two bairns playing, oh, I wouldna now just burst it all upon the auld man’s head! He’s no an ill auld man. He’s provided for her all her life; he is very muckle taken up with her now, maybe in a selfish way, for he’s feeling his age and his mainy infirmities, and he’s wanting a companion. But, oh! I would not burst it on him now! He could never abide her man, and, to tell the truth, Beenie, I’m not that fond of him mysel’, and she, poor thing, has had a fearfu’ opening to her eyes. How could ye have the bairn here and no the father? Could she say to her uncle: ‘I was very silly about him once and married him, and now I canna abide him’? Oh, no! that is what she will never say.” “And I hope she’ll never think it either,” Beenie said.