Sandy (humbly but firmly). Sit ye down, Miss Mary. It ain't for ye to throw your bright young life away yer in this place. It ain't for such as ye to soil your fair young hands by raking in the ashes to stir up the dead embers of a family wrong. It ain't for ye--ye'll pardon me, Miss Mary, for sayin' it--it ain't for ye to allow when it's TOO LATE fur a man to reform, or to go back of his reformation. Don't ye do it, miss, fur God's sake,--don't ye do it! Harkin, Miss Mary. If ye'll take my advice--a fool's advice, maybe--ye'll go. And when I tell ye that that advice, if ye take it, will take the sunshine out of these hills, the color off them trees, the freshness outer them flowers, the heart's-blood outer me,--ye'll know that I ain't thinkin' o' myself, but of ye. And I wouldn't say this much to ye, Miss Mary; but you're goin' away. There's a flower, miss, you're wearin' in your bosom,--a flower I picked at daybreak this morning, five miles away in the snow. The wind was blowing chill around it, so that my hands that dug for it were stiff and cold; but the roots were warm, Miss Mary, as they are now in your bosom. Ye'll keep that flower, Miss Mary, in remembrance of my love for ye, that kept warm and blossomed through the snow. And, don't start, Miss Mary,--for ye'll leave behind ye, as I did, the snow and rocks through which it bloomed. I axes your parding, miss: I'm hurtin' yer feelin's, sure. Miss Mary (rising with agitation). Nothing,--nothing; but climbing these stupid rocks has made me giddy: that's all. Your arm. (To SANDY impatiently). Can't you give me your arm? (SANDY supports MISS MARY awkwardly toward schoolhouse. At door MISS MARY pauses.) But if reformation is so easy, so acceptable, why have you not profited by it? Why have you not reformed? Why have I found you here, a disgraced, dissipated, anonymous outcast, whom an honest girl dare not know? Why do you presume to preach to me? Have you a father? Sandy. Hush, Miss Mary, hush! I had a father. Harkin. All that you have suffered from a kinship even so far removed, I have known from the hands of one who should have protected me. MY father was--but no matter. You, Miss Mary, came out of your trials like gold from the washing. I was only the dirt and gravel to be thrown away. It is too late, Miss Mary, too late. My father has never sought me, would turn me from his doors had I sought him. Perhaps he is only right. Miss Mary. But why should he be so different from others? Listen. This very cousin whose offer I refused had a son,--wild, wayward, by all report the most degraded of men. It was part of my cousin's reformation to save this son, and, if it were possible, snatch him from that terrible fate which seemed to be his only inheritance. Sandy (eagerly). Yes, miss.