"Oh, you darling! Did Isla forget him, then? What a shame!" She lifted him out, and his small chubby hands met tightly round her neck, and his cheek was laid against hers with a coo of delight. Elspeth stood smiling by, thinking of the wonder and gift of the child that can charm grief away. "If only you had a good man of your own, Miss Isla, and a heap of little pairns, like me, things would pe easier," she said quaintly. "It’s not for me to say, put I whiles think that if there had peen ither laddies in Achree, Maister Malcolm wouldna haf had it all his own wey, which would haf peen a good thing for him." "Yes, Elspeth, what you say is true; but I shall never have a man or any little bairns," she said with a sigh. "My life-work is cut out plainly enough--and has been from the beginning. I have to save Achree somehow--and I will." "That would be a fery good thing, no doubt, put the ither would pe petter, my lamb," said Elspeth with such yearning in her eyes that Isla, feeling her composure shaking again, hastily kissed the child and put him back in his little enclosure. "Donald must positively patent this, Eppie--he would make money by it. It’s the cleverest thing I’ve ever seen," she said lightly. "It does the turn, and I’m not sayin’ put that Donald is clever--clever with hiss hands. It makes up for the gift of the gab which he hass not got. I never saw a man speak less. I whiles ask him if his tongue pe not tired with too little wark." "Ah, but his heart is of gold, Eppie. Don’t you ever miscall Donald to me, for I won’t listen." "Wha’s misca’in him, whatefer?" asked Elspeth with a small laugh which hid a tear. "Good-bye, Miss Isla, my ponnie dear, and may the good God go wi’ ye and help ye ower this steep pit of the road." Isla nodded and sped away, not daring to trust herself to further speech. Left alone, Eppie Maclure sat down and incontinently began to cry. She came from one of the islands of the western seas, owned by kinsfolk of the Achree Mackinnons, and her heart was as soft as her speech, which had the roll of the western seas in its tone. There were no tears in Isla’s eyes as she breasted the hill bravely, brain and heart so busy that the good mile seemed but a stone’s throw. It was half-past twelve when she stopped at the low doorway of the house, and with a wave of the hand dismissed the dogs, who went off with hanging heads, as if they were conscious of having missed something in their walk. They knew--for there are few people wiser than the dumb creatures that love us--that, though the body of their mistress had accompanied them down the familiar way, her heart was clean away from them and from all the little homely happenings that can make a country walk so pleasant.