When she came at last within sight of the dim light in the kitchen window, a low lattice, out of which the lamp was faintly shining like a glowworm on the ground, Isabel’s flying pace was quickened. She could distinguish already some vague outlines of more than one figure round the door. Had the occasion or her feelings been less urgent, she would have paused to recover her breath, to put back her shawl, and end her precipitate course with an attempt at decorum; but she was too much agitated now to think of any such precautions. They heard her rapid feet as she began to hear the soft sound of their voices in the summer gloom; and Jean Campbell had but time to call out ‘Who goes there? is it oor Isabel?’--when the girl rushed into the midst of them, breathless, her hair ruffled by the shawl, her face glowing with the unusual exercise, her eyes shining. She rushed into the midst of the little group, catching hold of her stepmother in her agitation to stop herself in her headlong course. And the watchers started and gave place to her with a mixture of joy and terror. ‘Lassie, you’ll have me down!’ cried Jean Campbell, staggering under the sudden clutch, ‘but it’s you, God be praised. Here’s your sister half out of her mind. And where have you been?’ ‘Is Margaret there?’ cried the panting Isabel. ‘And it so late, and the dew falling--and all my fault! But I did not mean it--I never thought it was so late; and then we got astray on the hill; and I’ve run every step of the way,’ cried Isabel hastily. ‘And what were you doing on the hill?’ began the stepmother. Margaret interrupted the expostulation. She put her hand out in the darkness to her sister. ‘I am not able to stand longer--now Isabel’s come,’ she said; ‘I am wearied and faint with waiting--say nothing to-night--the morn will be a new day.’ ‘Aye,’ said Jean Campbell to herself, when the sisters had gone in; ‘the morn’s ay a new day; but them that’s lightheaded and thoughtless the night will be thoughtless the morn. Naething is to be counted on with a young lass. She’ll hae her fling though she’s a lady born. And Margaret there, puir thing, that never kent what it was to have the life dancing in her bits of veins! I’m, maybe, hard on her mysel,’ Jean murmured, pausing a moment at the closed door of the parlour. There was a sound of weeping from within, which touched her heart. She listened, hesitating whether to interfere. ‘If she had twa-three words to say to her lad on the hill, there was nae harm in that,’ said Jean to herself; and moved by recollections, she knocked at the door. ‘Lasses, ten’s chappit,’ she said. ‘The bairns are in their beds, and Margaret should ay be bedded as soon as the bairns. As for _her_ there, likely she meant nae harm. Let her gang to her bed and say her prayers, and we’ll think on’t nae mair.’