“But if it had been you, Miss Lily, it would have been no advantage. You can go to him at the Manse, but he could not have come to you here.” “That is true,” cried Lily, laughing; “you are a clever Beenie to think of that. But how am I to live till to-morrow, all the long night through, and all the morning without news?” “A young gentleman doesna die of a sprained ankle,” said Beenie sedately, “and if you are a good bairn, and will go early to bed, and take care of yourself, I’ll see that the boy goes into the toun the first thing in the morning to hear how he is.” “You are a kind Beenie,” cried Lily, clasping her arms about her maid’s neck. But it was a long time before Robina succeeded in quieting the girl’s excitement. She had to hear the story again half-a-dozen times over, now in its full reality, now in the form which it had to bear for the outside world, with all the tears and laughter which accompanied it. “And he grew so white, so white, I thought he was going to faint,” said Lily, herself growing pale. “I’m thankful ye were spared that. It is very distressing to see a person faint, Miss Lily.” “And then he cheered up and gave a grin in the middle of his pain: I will not call it a smile, for it was no more than a grin, half fun and half torture. Poor Ronald! oh, my poor lad, my poor lad!” “He was a lucky lad to get you to do all that for him, Miss Lily.” “Me! What did it matter if it was me or you or a fishwife,” said Lily, “when a man is in such dreadful pain?” They discussed it over and over again from every point of view, until Lily fell asleep from sheer weariness in the hundredth repetition of the story. Beenie, for her part, was exceedingly discreet at supper that evening. Indeed, she was altogether too discreet to be successful with a quick observer like Katrin, who saw, by the extreme precautions of her friend, and the close-shut lips with which Beenie minced and bridled, and made little remarks about nothing in particular, that there was something to conceal. Katrin was very near to penetrating the mystery even now, but she said nothing except those somewhat ostentatious congratulations to all parties on the fact that Miss Eelen was there, which were designed to show the growing conviction that Miss Eelen was not there at all. Beenie was quite quick enough to perceive this, but she exercised much control over herself, and made no signs before Dougal. He was chiefly occupied by the address to Rory which Lily had made, which struck him as an excellent joke, and which he repeated to himself from time to time, with a laugh which came from the depths of his being. “She said till him: ‘Ye can throw me the morn, and welcome, if ye’ll go canny the day.’ Losh, what a spirit she has, that lassie, and the fun in her! ‘Go canny the day, and ye can throw me, if ye like, the morn.’ And Rory to take it a’ in like a Christian!” He laughed till he held his sides, and then he said feebly: “It’ll be the death of me.”