“No half strong enough,” said Jeanie. “I wouldna gie him back, no a brass farden.” Then she paused, and her countenance changed again--that scarcely perceptible darkening, paling, came over it, and this time she spoke quickly, with a little almost impatient determination, as if resolved not to allow herself any more to be crushed and silenced by herself. “Faither,” she said, “you’ll ken he’s come back. Have you heard anything of Rob Glen?” “Not a word, Jeanie, no a word. I thought that was what you were coming to tell me.” There was a pause-- Jeanie said nothing. She turned her face away, and made believe to look out at the dim little window, while the cobbler, with the delicacy of a prince, turned in the other direction that he might not seem to watch her. “It’s a long time since the lad has been hame,” he said, with a slight tremor in his voice. “He will have many things to take him up; and his mother--his mother’s a proud woman; he knows neither you nor me would welcome him against the will o’ his ain folk.” “It’s no that, faither,” said Jeanie, with a low sound like a sob, which escaped her unawares. “It’s no that. The like of that is nothing. Am I one that would judge a hard judgment? It’s no that.” “You would never mean it, Jeanie, my bonnie woman; but when the heart is troubled the judgment’s n’ ajee. You maun possess your soul in patience; maist things come right one way or anither to them that will wait.” Jeanie gave a weary sigh, the light dying out of her face. She kept gazing out of the little window, in a strained attitude, with the tears unseen, blinding her eyes. “It was just that I came for,” she said, “to see if you could tell me what to do. He has made great friends, I kenna how, with our Miss Margaret, and he’s coming to Earl’s-ha’; maybe I’ll have to open the door till him, maybe I’ll have to show him up the stair--to say Sir till him, and never let on he’s onything to me.” Here a sob once more broke the hurrying current of Jeanie’s words. “What will I do, faither--what will I do?” she cried, with an intense undertone of pain, which made the words tragical in their simplicity--smiling Jeanie, so fair and friendly, turning all at once into a tragic representation (for the millionth time) of disappointed love, and that aching loss which by reason of some lingering possibility of redemption for it, is more hard to bear than despair. “My bonnie woman!” said the cobbler; the same ring of pain was in his voice; but the very delicacy of his sympathy, and its acuteness, kept him silent. He made another pause: “Jeanie, my lass,” he said, “in a’ the trials o’ this life I’ve found that true that was said to them that were first sent out to preach the Word. God’s awfu’ good, to give us the same for the common need as is for the divine. ‘Tak’ nae thought in that hour what ye will say.’ That’s aye the guide as long as you’re innocent of harm. It will be put into your mouth what is best.”