There was a new stone milk-house a few yards from the door, built since his departure; and he must needs see it, Granny said. So she took him with her when she went for a jug of buttermilk for the guests. And when he had admired the place and the buttermilk had been procured, they stood in the cool, sweet dampness, and Granny told him how all the friends had asked for him so often. The minister, indeed, came up several times just to inquire if they had had a letter, and Store Thompson's wife had said that whenever the Captain himself came to the Glen he always asked for him. Then she went to the farther end of the little chamber and commenced a diligent search for something that was not there, and, with her back turned to him, remarked with elaborate carelessness that the Captain's family were expected at the Grange any day now. The Captain had been away nearly all the time since he lost the election, he had been that disappointed, poor body. They had spent the last winter in Toronto. The wee Isabel hadn't been jist very well all winter, Kirsty had said, and the aunt had wanted to take her to the seashore, but she had said that nothing but the Oro air would do her any good, and Kirsty was expecting her some of these days. Scotty drew a deep breath. She was coming back then! She would be at the Grange, she might even come to Kirsty's! And then Kirsty herself darted in and snatched the pitcher of buttermilk from Granny's hands and disappeared as quickly. Neither of them noticed her, for Scotty was in a rosy but hopeless dream, and Granny was patting him lovingly upon the arm in expression of the sympathy she dared not speak. There was silence for a moment, the old woman still caressing him tenderly. "Eh, it would be the Lord would be bringing you back to me, _m' eudail bheg_," she said at last. "He would be good to Malcolm and me in our old age, for you would jist be our Benjamin, whatever. And has it been well with Granny's boy all this weary time?" she added in a whisper. Scotty put his hands upon her shoulders and looked long into her loving eyes. "Granny," he whispered, "do you remember the first day I went to school, and how I came through the swamp alone on the way home." "Eh, the wee man it was! And how would I be forgetting, indeed, for it would be the first time you would be leaving me!" "And do you remember what I found a comfort then? The swamp was so lonely it frightened me, and I thought it must be like the valley of the shadow of death; so I said over the Shepherd's Psalm, because you had taught it to me and I knew it must be good, and I wasn't afraid any more. And now I've been away from you again, Granny, in the valley of the shadow of death, yes, and worse than death often, but--the rod and the staff were always with me."