'I'll tell you after I have seen this grand house of yours. An' this is the shanty you wrote about with everything out and inside higgle-de-piggeldy! Ye are a great housekeeper to be sure. Why, your house has not got a lum! (chimney). Did you have breakfast yet? Poor fellow, no wonder your cheeks are thin.' 'Never mind, Mirren, I have planned a new house and with your help it will soon be built.' 'That it will, Archie; it is to help you I have come.' Sitting side by side on a pile of boards, Mirren told how she had come. On Archie's letter reaching his mother with three pounds enclosed she saw the possibility of Mirren going to Canada. 'The passage money is four pounds, mother, and there is the buying of what cannot be done without. We will have to wait for another remittance.' 'Listen, and I will tell you what I never even let on to your father. When he had that accident six years ago that laid him up and we feared he would never go to the hills again, the thought came to me that if he died the parish would have to bury him. I set it down that no such disgrace would ever fall on our family if I could help it, and when he got better I set to put-by every penny that could be spared, and many a hank I have spun and stocking knitted to get the pennies. After thinking over Archie's letter, I counted what I put by and I have one pound, seven shillings, and tenpence. Your passage, you see, is paid.' 'But I dare not leave you alone.' 'Mirren, you will do as your mother asks you. Your brother needs help: go, and we will follow you a year sooner.' 'I thought it all over,' said Mirren, 'and it was settled I should go. It was quite a venture for a young lass to go alone so far, but I was not afraid, seeing there were the plain markings of what was my duty. So we set to work to get ready, and here I am.' 'Bless you, Mirren, you have a brave heart and God helping us, we will have father and mother with us in another twelve month, and the black dog. Want will never frighten them more.'