"No' well at all. The doctor was in this morning, and he's coming up again later, but he says there is nothing he can do. She's just worn out, and can you wonder? Many a time I've been fair vexed to see her toilin' with lodgers; but you see we had just ma pay, and a woman's pay is no' much to keep a house on, and she wanted to make a few shillings extra. And, Miss Seton, d'ye know what she's been doing a' these years? Scraping and hoarding every penny she could, and laying it away, to pay ma passage to America. Ma sister Maggie's there, ye know, and when she's gone she says I'm to go to Maggie. A' these years she's toiled with this before her. She had such a spirit, she would never give in." Kate wiped her eyes with her apron. "Come in and see ma mother." "Oh, I don't think so. She oughtn't to see anyone when she is so ill." "The doctor says it makes no difference, and she'll be vexed no' to see you. I told her you were in. She had aye a notion of you." "If you think I won't do her harm, I should love to see her," said Elizabeth, getting up; and Kate led the way to the kitchen. The fog had thickened, and the windows in the little eyrie of a kitchen glimmered coldly opaque. From far beneath came the sounds of the railway. Mrs. Veitch lay high on her pillows, her busy hands folded. She had given in at last. Elizabeth thought she was sleeping, but she opened her eyes, and, seeing her visitor, smiled slightly. "Are ye collectin' the day?" she asked. "No," Elizabeth said, leaning forward and speaking very gently. "I don't want any money to-day. I came to ask for you. I am so sorry you are ill." Mrs. Veitch looked at her with that curious appraising look that very sick people sometimes give one. "Ay. I'm aboot by wi' it noo, and I em no' vexed. I'm terrible wearied." "You are very wearied now," Elizabeth said, stroking the work-roughened hands that lay so calmly on the counterpane--all her life Mrs. Veitch had been a woman of much self-control, and in illness the habit did not desert her--"you are very wearied now, but you will get a good rest and soon be your busy self again." "Na, I've been wearied for years.... Ma man died forty years syne, an' I've had ma face agin the wind ever since. That last nicht he lookit at the fower bairns--wee Hugh was a baby in ma airms--and he says, _'Ye've aye been fell, Tibbie. Be fell noo.'_ Lyin' here, I'm wonderin' what ma life's been--juist a fecht to get the denner ready, and a fecht to get the tea ready, an' a terrible trauchle on the washin'-days. It vexes me to think I've done so little to help ither folk. I never had the time." "Ah! but you're forgetting," said Elizabeth. "The people you helped remember. I have heard--oh! often--from one and another how you did a sick neighbour's washing, and gave a hot meal to children whose mothers had to work out, and carried comfort to people in want. Every step your tired feet took on those errands is known to God."