Jean attended her to her room when it was time for rest, as she would have done had Isabel been her own child, and gave her one of those rare shy kisses, of which the homely Scotch matron was half-ashamed in her intense reticence and self-control. ‘Try and sleep, my lamb,’ she said, ‘I’ll come back and put out the candle.’ And then she returned to her kitchen, to shut her shutters, and put the ‘gathering coal’ upon the fire, and make all snug for the night. When she had ended her silent labours, Jean took her moment of indulgence also, sitting down to think in the elbow-chair, by the side of the dark heaped-up smouldering fire. ‘Na, na,’ she said to herself, ‘I maunna trust to that. If Margaret had set it apart out of her share--but I’m no reflecting upon Margaret. It was a’ the first wife’s siller, and it’s Isabel’s by right; and I dinna doubt her bit warm hasty heart. But if she were to marry that English lad, me and mine would be little to her after; and if she was to marry anybody else--even the minister--he would be for thinking of his ain first, and maybe a family coming. It would be real natural. Na, na! I maunna trust to Isabel; and, maybe, after a’ it’s best for the laddie,’ she said to herself, with a sigh. ‘If the root o’ the matter’s in him, he’ll fight his way to it; and if it’s no, he’ll never try; and when a’ ‘s said and done, maybe that’s the best.’ But it was with a sigh she rose from that moment of reflection and stole back to remove the candle, and saw with affectionate pleasure that Isabel, worn out, had already dropped to sleep. ‘The poor bairn!’ Jean said, in her tenderness, and clambered up to the attic beside her children, with that sense of being the protector and sole guardian of so much helplessness, which fills the heart of a solitary woman with such softness and such strength. CHAPTER XVI The next step in Isabel’s solitary new life was the visit of Miss Catherine, whose entrance Jean permitted a few days earlier than decorum properly allowed. ‘After a’, she’s a connection, and the poor bairn’s best support,’ she said, as she went, wiping her hands on her apron, to open the door to the visitor. ‘Oh, ay, Miss Catherine! come your ways ben; she’ll be glad of a kind word. She’s no suffered that much in her health--God be thankit! But whiles my heart breaks to see her in that weary parlour her lane, and nothing to wile her from her ain thoughts.’ ‘I had not the courage to come sooner,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘But, Jean, we must not leave her to her own thoughts.’ There could be but one way of meeting for the two. Isabel stood up for an instant with a nervous attempt at composure, and then dropped weeping into her old friend’s extended arms: and there was first the inevitable attempt at consolation, tender words and encouragements. ‘It’s well with her--it’s better for her. We must not mourn, for her sake.’