Sometimes, on their way from school, the girls would find Geordie perched on the paling of one of Gowrie’s fields, while the cattle grazed within the fences, watching for their coming to enliven a lonely hour with their talk and news of school doings.  His eye used to glisten with pride and pleasure as he watched the little Jean appear, carrying her books and slate, and already bearing many traces of civilising influences.  And it is not to be wondered at if his eye rested with admiration sometimes on the sweet maiden, who was generally her companion, and that he learnt to watch eagerly for the first glimpse of the snowy sun-bonnet along the winding green lane which led from the girls’ school to the high road.  Sometimes Elsie used to bring one of her favourite books in her plaited-cord school-bag, and then the trio would sit in a shady corner, where Geordie’s vigilant eye could still keep watch over his charge, while the little girl introduced her friends to some of the favourite scenes of her ideal world.  Elsie seemed to understand, though she had never been told it in so many words, all about Geordie’s intense desire for knowledge, and to appreciate his self-denial in remaining in his present post.  And so it happened there grew up in her mind a tender sympathy for all that he had missed, side by side with an admiring belief in his character.

How many thoughts and ideas he surely must have, she used to think, after one of those meetings, when she took her solitary way home, after parting with Jean, and remembered Geordie’s remarks, which seemed to throw new light on her favourite histories, and to touch with insight all that was most beautiful and true in them.  Often Elsie used to delight the unvocal brother and sister by singing one of her hymns, which for days afterwards would echo in some “odd corner” of the lonely little herd-boy’s brain.  Sometimes, too, they discussed what they had been hearing on the previous Sunday at Kirklands; and Elsie always felt more interested in the lesson after hearing Geordie’s gentle, reverent talk.  And to Elsie, who had neither brother nor sister, there was an infinite charm in Geordie’s devotion to his sister Jean, and his unwearied anxiety for her happiness.  She noticed, too, the tender, chivalrous care with which he ministered to his old grandmother, never wearying of her selfish, querulous ways, and sacrificing himself to her smallest wishes.

So it happened that a warm friendship sprang up between those three who sat side by side in Grace Campbell’s little school-room; and their daily lives had become pleasantly interwoven during these past months.  To Jean, Elsie appeared the embodiment of all that was worthy of imitation, from her snowy sun-bonnet to her gentle voice, both seeming equally unattainable to the little girl.  When Geordie returned to the village on Saturday night, he used generally to hear from Jean some glowing narrative in Elsie’s praise, to which Geordie’s ears were quite wide open, though he sat bending over his books in the “ingle neuk” of the cottage kitchen.