And that is the best way of healing the wounded, if their friends but knew. It was the end of summer before they returned to the Gushat-house. And then, whether it was that they were unexpected, or whether from her misdeeds towards Willy Erskine, as Nora thought, few people came to see them at first, and nobody so much as mentioned the Drumthwacket family. The name of Erskine was never, as Nora thought, named before her; and she felt herself more guilty still as she seemed thus to read her own condemnation in the eyes of others. But now the turn of the season had arrived; when she cast wistful looks from the corner of the garden up the long country road, going “north,” as those geographical, seafaring populations described it, a leaf would now and then flicker down through the sunny air, a sign that autumn had come. A few weeks more, and the _Pretty Peggy_ might flutter up the Firth with all her sails set, like a fine lady coming into a ballroom, as the sailors delighted to say; and if Nora, penitent, with softness in her eyes, were by, could anyone doubt that the eager face of the ship’s doctor would expand too, and that the evil days would come to an end? No one could have doubted it but Nora. It was as certain that it would all be made up as that the _Pretty Peggy_ would come safe out of the icy seas. To be sure, ships were lost there sometimes, sometimes detained among the ice. But look what a season it has been! Even the men’s wives were easy in their minds, and sung by their wheels, or mended the nets at their cottage doors, and looked over the smooth Firth with contented hearts. A week or two more, and the seamen, with their wages, and their curiosities, and their rejoicing, would have come home. There was not a man’s wife in the _Pretty Peggy_ who was so anxious as Nora. But then it was _her_ fault. It was she who had sent him to sea--he who was no seaman, he whom a wealthier lot awaited. And perhaps he would look bitterly upon the woman whose caprice had wrought him so much harm. This was the thought that made her heart ache, and made the days so long to her. She used to walk out to the pier to watch the sunset reflections, and listen in silence to the prognostications of the fishers and seamen about. When they prophesied a gale, Nora’s heart would beat wild with alarm; when they gave their word the storm was past, a hush as of a consoled child would come over her. At last there came a speck on the horizon, upon which all those ancient mariners fixed their telescopes. They exchanged opinions about her rig, and her hull, and her manner of sailing, till Nora, standing by, was half crazed with suspense. At last the news flew through the town, waking up all the wynds and cottages. It was the _Pretty Peggy_ at last.