She hardly woke up when Mrs. Duncan placed the baby in her arms, and left them with a murmured benediction, and went down for a gossip with Jean. "And a lovelier sight my old eyes never saw," she said, "than that young creature, who looks only a child herself, with the bonnie boy in her arms, and her golden-brown hair covering them both. 'Deed, Jean, the man must have an evil spirit in him to ill-treat a little angel like that. But we will keep her safe, my woman, as sure as my name is Jeanie Duncan;" and to this Jean agreed. They were both innocent unsophisticated women who knew nothing of the world's ways, and as Mrs. Duncan had said, "they would as soon have turned a shorn lamb away, and left it exposed to the tempest," as shut their door against Fay and her child. Fay was not able to rise from the bed the next day; indeed for more than a week she was almost as helpless as a baby, and had to submit to a great deal of nursing. Mrs. Duncan was quite in her element--petting her guest, and ordering Jean about; for she was a brisk, bustling little woman, and far more active than her three-score and ten years warranted. It was a delight to her motherly nature to dress and undress Fay's bonny boy. She would prose for hours about Robbie and Elsie as she sat beside the homely cradle that had once held her own children, while Fay listened languidly. It was all she could do to lie there and sleep and eat. Perhaps it was bodily exhaustion, but a sort of lull had come to her. She ceased to fret, and only wondered dreamily if Hugh were very pleased to get rid of her, and what he was doing, and who dusted and arranged his papers for him now she was no longer there. But of course Mrs. Heron would see to that. Jean had plenty of work on her hands, but she never grumbled. There was the baby's washing and extra cooking, and the care of her old master. But in spite of her hard work, she often contrived to find her way to the pink room; for Jean worshiped babies, and it was a proud moment when she could get the boy in her arms and carry him out for a breath of air. Mrs. Duncan told Fay that she had had great difficulty in making her husband understand the facts of the case. "His brain was just a wee bit clouded to every-day matters," she said; but he knew that he had guests at the Manse, and had charged his wife to show every hospitality. "There is a deal said about the virtue of hospitality in the Bible," he continued. "There was Abraham and the fatted calf; and the good widows in the apostles' time who washed the feet of strangers; and some have entertained angels unaware; and it shall never be said of us, Jeanie woman, that we turned anybody from the Manse." Fay went to see the old man when she was strong enough to leave her room, which was not for a fortnight after her arrival.