’I would not think it, if I could help it,’ said the literal Alison. ’But ’tis all arranged—indeed it is—and my mother set upon it in her mind, and nothing will turn her.’ ’_I_ will turn her!’ cried the lively little grass-widow, with her charming smile and a flash of her dark eyes. ’Will you?’ said Alison, solemnly, leaning forward and gazing at her new friend with devouring, wondering eyes. ’How?’ A clock struck two. It was a timely diversion, and Mrs. Maclehose jumped down from the bed on to her little bare feet. ’Two of the clock!’ she cried, ’and me with a cold creeping down the spine of my back like a rill of ice-water! I must away to my bed, love.’ ’Ah!’ cried Alison, ’how selfish of me to have kept you in a cold room, talking.’ ’’Twas I kept myself, dear,’ said the visitor, lightly. ’Not the first foolish thing I have done in my life, or likely to be the last, either. Will you call me, Nancy, child, and kiss me good-night?’ ’Sure,’ cried Alison, ’I think you are a dream, a fairy, or an angel!’ The dream put out its arms, took Alison’s head into their embrace, and kissed her curls. ’We’ll meet to-morrow,’ she said, ’and then you’ll see I’m no dream.’ Then she paddled over the cold bare boards on those little feet, and casting a last bright look over her shoulder to Alison in the bed, she was gone. Alison watched the light in the crack under the door, until it grew fainter and fainter, and then disappeared. Then, not a little comforted, she turned round in her nest, and slept like a child. The next morning, Alison ventured to take her usual place in the household, and was met with smiles. ’Now you are come to your senses, Alison,’ her mother said, ’and you will live to thank me that I showed you the way. See here, now,’ she went on, ’this fine Edinburgh madam that has come here while you were up yonder, has gotten an influenza that will keep her in her bed for a week, I’m thinking. Not that I grudge it her either, for it aye goes clean against the grain wi’ me to have sheets soiled for the one night; I’d far sooner get the week’s work out o’ them. You must take madam’s breakfast up, though, and make yourself civil, Ally. She was aye a clever, going-about body, Nancy, fine and gleg at the dressing of herself up. ’Tis a God-send her coming now. She’ll set us in the fashions for your wedding, and show us how to sort my bonny silk.’ Alison shuddered; but she prepared the tray for the visitor’s breakfast, and proceeded to take it upstairs, her heart beating fast with curiosity. Under the flowered curtains of the best bed a little figure, still huddled in the pink wrapper, was gripped in the agueish shivering of an influenza cold. It started up, however, with unimpaired liveliness when Alison appeared. ’Ah, child,’ she cried, ’I knew it would be you! Come, let us look at each other in the broad daylight. Why, what a Juno it is!’ looking Alison up and down. ’What a great, big girl, to be topped by those baby curls.’