One lovely summer evening Dawtie, with a bundle in her hand, looked from the top of a grassy knoll down on her parents' turf cottage. The sun was setting behind her, and she looked as if she had stepped from it as it touched the ground on which she stood, rosy with the rosiness of the sun, but with a light in her countenance which came from a higher source, from the same nest as the sun himself. She paused but a moment, ran down the hill, and found her mother making the porridge. Mother and daughter neither embraced, nor kissed, nor even shook hands, but their faces glowed with delight, and words of joy and warmest welcome flowed between them. “But ye haena lost yer place, hae ye, hinny?” said the mother. “No, mother; there's no fear o' that, as lang's the laird or Miss Lexy's to the fore. They tret me--I winna say like ane o' themsel's, but as if they would hae likit me for ane o' themsel's, gien it had pleased the Lord to sen' me their way instead o' yours. They're that guid to me ye canna think!” “Then what's broucht ye the day?” “I beggit for a play-day. I wantit to see An'rew.” “Eh, lass! I'm feart for ye! Ye maunna set yer hert sae hie! An'rew's the best o' men, but a lass canna hae a man til hersel' jist 'cause he's the best man i' the warl'!” “What mean ye by that, mother?” said Dawtie, looking a little scared. “Am I no' to lo'e An'rew, 'cause he's 'maist as guid's the Lord wad hae him? Wad ye hae me hate him for't? Has na he taught me to lo'e God--to lo'e Him better nor father, mither, An'rew, or onybody? I _wull_ lo'e An'rew! What can ye mean, mother?” “What I mean, Dawtie, is, that ye mamma think because ye lo'e him ye maun hae him; ye maunna think ye canna du wantin' An'rew!” “It's true, mother, I kenna what I should do wantin' An'rew! Is na he aye shovin' the door o' the kingdom a wee wider to lat me see in the better? It's little ferly (_marvel_) I lo'e him! But as to wantin'him for my ain man, as ye hae my father!--mother, I wad be ashamet o' mysel' to think o' ony sic a thing!--clean affrontit wi' mysel' I wad be!” “Weel, weel, bairn! Ye was aye a wise like lass, an' I maun lippen til ye! Only luik to yer hert.” “As for no' lo'ein' him, mither--me that canna luik at a blin' kittlin' ohn lo'ed it!--lo, mither! God made me sae, an didna mean me no' to lo'e An'rew!” “Andrew!” she repeated, as if the word meant the perfection of earth's worthiest rendering the idea of appropriation too absurd. Silence followed, but the mother was brooding. “Ye maun bethink ye, lass, hoo far he's abune ye!” she said at length. As the son of the farmer on whose land her husband was a cotter, Andrew seemed to her what the laird seemed to old John Ingram, and what the earl seemed to the laird, though the laird's family was ancient when the earl's had not been heard of. But Dawtie understood Andrew better than did her mother.