“And is it yourself that’s feeling better now?” she questioned fondly.

Isabel raised herself, smiling her sad smile.  “Oh, Biddy,” she said, “for myself I feel that all is well—­all will be well.  The dawn draws nearer—­every hour.”

Biddy shook her head with pursed lips.  “Ye shouldn’t talk so, mavourneen.  It’s the Almighty who has the ruling.  Ye wouldn’t wish to go before your time?”

“Before my time!  Oh, Biddy!  When I have lingered in the prison-house so long!” Slowly Isabel rose to her feet.  She looked at Biddy almost whimsically.  “I think He will take that into the reckoning,” she said.  “Do you know, Biddy, this is the second summons that has come to me?  And I think—­I think,” her face was glorified again as the face of one who sees a vision—­“I think the third will be the last.”

Biddy’s black eyes screwed up suddenly.  She turned her face away.

“Will we be getting ready to go now, Miss Isabel?” she asked after a moment, in a voice that shook.

The glory died out of Isabel’s face, though the reflection of it still lingered in her eyes.  “I am very selfish, Biddy,” she said.  “Can you guess what Miss Dinah has just told me?”

“Arrah thin, I can,” said Biddy, with a touch of aggressiveness.  “I’ve seen it coming for a long time past.  And ye didn’t ought to allow it at all, Miss Isabel.  It’s a mistake, that’s what it is.  It’s just a bad mistake.”

“Not if he loves her, Biddy.”  Isabel spoke gently, but there was a hint of reproof in her voice.

Biddy, however, remained quite unabashed.  “He love her!” she snorted.  “As if he ever loved anybody besides himself!  Talk about the lion and the lamb, Miss Isabel!  It’s a cruel shame to let her go to such as him.  And what’ll poor Master Scott do at all?  And he worshipping the little fairy feet of her!”

“Hush, Biddy, hush!” Isabel spoke with decision.  “I hope—­I trust—­that he isn’t very grievously disappointed.  But if he is, it is the one thing that neither you nor I must ever seem to suspect.”

“Ah!” grumbled Biddy mutinously.  “And isn’t that just like Sir Eustace, with all the world to pick from, to choose the one thing—­the one little wild rose—­as Master Scott had set his heart on?  He’s done it from his cradle.  Always the one thing someone else wanted he must grab for himself.  But is it too late, Miss Isabel darlint?” Sudden hope shone in the old woman’s eyes.  “Is it really too late?  Couldn’t ye drop a hint to the dear lamb?  Sure and she’s fond of Master Scott!  Maybe she’d turn to him after all if she knew.”

Isabel shook her head almost sternly.  “Biddy, no!  This is no affair of ours.  If Master Scott suspected for a moment what you have just said to me, he would never forgive you.”

“May I come in?” said Scott’s voice at the door.  “My dear, you are looking better.  Are you well enough to start?”

“Yes, of course.”  Isabel moved towards him, her hands extended in mute affection.