“And, Miss Margret,” she said, “you’ll no let some light-headed thing of a maid tear thae bonnie locks out o’ your head with her curlings and frizzings? Sir Ludovic couldna endure them. He would aye have it like silk, shining in the sun. He never could bide to see it neglected. The ladies even, though they’re no so young as they once were, did you ever see such heads? But yours is as God made it, and as bonnie as a flower. And you’ll aye mind your duty, my bonnie darlin’, and your prayers, and remember your Creator in the days o’ your youth. And dinna think ower muckle about your dresses, nor about lads. That will come in its time. I’m just beginning again, though I said I wouldna do it! But oh, to think it’s the last night, and I’ll never put you to your bed again, nor gie you good advice, nor keep you from the cauld, nor take it upon me to find fault with my bonnie young lady! I canna tell what will be the use of me mair when my bonnie bird flies away.” “Oh, Bell, I will come back; I will come back!” “Ay, you’ll come back, my darlin’ bairn; but if you come a hundred times, and a hundred to that, you’ll never be the same, Miss Margret. The Lord bless you, my bonnie lamb--but you’ll never be the same.” Whether this was a very good preparation for the long night’s rest which Mrs. Bellingham thought necessary for travellers, may perhaps be doubted. But Margaret soon cried herself to sleep when Bell withdrew. She was too much exhausted with excitement to be further excited, and this gentle chapter of domestic life, the return of the faces and voices, and looks and feelings familiar to her, gave some comfort to the girl’s overworn brain. They interfered between her and that strange scene in the farm-house. They formed a new event, a something which had happened since, to soften to her the trouble and commotion of that strange interruption of her life. She slept, and woke in the morning with a sense of relief which at first she could scarcely account for. What was it of comfort and amelioration that had happened to her? Was it all a dream that her father was dead, that her youthful existence was closed? No, it was that she was going away. Margaret shuddered and trembled with wonder to think that it was possible this could be a relief to her. But yet it was so. She could not doubt it, she could not deny it to herself. When she ought to have been broken-hearted, she was glad. To go away, to escape from all that was so secret and so strange was so much a comfort to her, that she had almost forgotten that she was leaving home at the same time, going out upon a strange and unrealized existence, leaving the friends of her infancy, the house she was born in, all the familiar circumstances of her life, and her father’s grave, where he had been laid so lately.