"If it's the restlessness you once spoke of, you ought to put a check on it and try to be content. There's danger in the longing to be always going on." "It's a common idea that a small hazard gives a thing an interest." Jessie shot a swift glance at him, and she had, as he noticed, expressive eyes. "Be careful!" she said. "After all, it's wiser to keep within safe limits, and not climb over too many fences." She hesitated, and her voice grew softer. "You have friends who would be sorry if you got hurt." The man was a little stirred; she was alluring physically, while something in her voice had its effect on him. Evelyn, however, still occupied his thoughts, and he smiled at his companion. "Thank you," he said. "I like to believe it." CHAPTER XIV VANE SAILS NORTH. It was growing dusk on the evening of Vane's departure when he walked out of Nairn's room. His host was with him, and when they entered an adjacent room, where a lamp was burning, the older man's face relaxed into a smile as he saw Jessie Horsfield talking to his wife. Vane stopped a few minutes to speak to them, and it was Jessie who gave the signal for the group to break up. "I must go," she said to Mrs. Nairn. "I've already stayed longer than I intended. I'll let you have those patterns back in a day or two." "Mair patterns!" Nairn exclaimed with dry amusement. "It's the second lot this week; ye're surely industrious, Jessie. Women"--he addressed Vane--"have curious notions of economy. They will spend a month knitting a thing to give to somebody who does not want it, when they could buy it for half a dollar done better by machinery. I'm no saying, however, that it does not keep them out of mischief." Jessie laughed. "I don't think many of us are industrious in that, way now. After all, isn't it a pity that so many of the beautiful old handicrafts are dying out? No loom, for instance, could turn out some of the things your wife makes. They're matchless." "She has an aumrie--ye can translate it trunk--full of them," said Nairn. "It's no longer customary to scatter them ower the house." Mrs. Nairn's smile was half a sigh. "There were no books, and no mony amusements, when I was young," she said to Jessie. "We sat through the long winter forenights, counting stitches, at Burnfoot, under the Scottish moors. That, my dear, was thirty years ago." She shook hands with Vane, who left the house with Jessie, and watched them cross the lawn. "I'm thinking ye'll no see so much of Jessie for the next few weeks," Nairn, who had accompanied her to the door, remarked. "Has she shown ye any of yon knick-knacks when she finished them." His wife shook her head at him reproachfully. "Alec," she said, "ye're now and then hasty in jumping at conclusions." "Maybe," replied Nairn. "I'm no infallible, but the fault ye mention is no common in the land where we were born. I'm no denying that Jessie has enterprise, but how far it will carry her in this case is mair than I can tell."