“Oh, laird, laird, ye've been gude and kin' to me, and I lo'e ye, the Lord kens! I pray ye for Christ's sake be reconciled to God, for ye hae been servin' Mammon and no Him, and ye hae jist said we canna serve the twa, and what 'ill come o' 't God only can tell, but it _maun_ be misery!” Words failed her. She rose, and left the room, with her apron to her eyes. The laird stood a moment or two like one lost, then went hurriedly into his “closet,” and shut the door. Whether he went on his knees to God as did Dawtie to Him, or began again to gloat over his Cellini goblet, I do not know. Dawtie cried herself to sleep, and came down in the morning very pale. Her duty had left her exhausted, and with a kind of nausea toward all the ornaments and books in the house. A cock crew loud under the window of the kitchen. She dropped on her knees, said “Father of lights!” not a word beside, rose and began to rouse the fire. When breakfast-time came, and the laird appeared, he looked much as usual, only a little weary, which his daughter set down to his journey the day before. He revived, however, as soon as he had succeeded in satisfying himself that Alexa knew nothing of what had passed. How staid, discreet, and compact of common sense Alexa seemed to him beside Dawtie, whose want of education left her mind a waste swamp for the vagaries of whatever will-o'-the-wisp an overstrained religious fantasy might generate! But however much the laird might look the same as before, he could never, knowing that Dawtie knew what she knew, be again as he had been. “You'll do a few of the books to-day, won't you, Dawtie,” he said, “when you have time? I never thought I should trust any one! I would sooner have old Meg shave me than let her dust an Elzevir! Ha! ha! ha!” Dawtie was glad that at least he left the door open between them. She said she would do a little dusting in the afternoon, and would be very careful. Then the laird rose and went out, and Dawtie perceived, with a shoot of compassion mingled with mild remorse, that he had left his breakfast almost untasted. But after that, so far from ever beginning any sort of conversation with her, he seemed uncomfortable the moment they happened to be alone together. If he caught her eye, he would say--hurriedly, and as if acknowledging a secret between them, “By and by, Dawtie;” or, “I'm thinking about the business, Dawtie;” or, “I'm making up my mind, Dawtie!” and so leave her. On one occasion he said, “Perhaps you will be surprised some day, Dawtie!” On her part Dawtie never felt that she had anything more to say to him. She feared at times that she had done him evil rather than good by pressing upon him a duty she had not persuaded him to perform. She spoke of this fear to Andrew, but he answered decisively: