“It is Jean that will not see you suffer.”

“But the bite and the sup, Jean?  How are we to get them?”

“I can make my own dresses and cloaks, so then I can make dresses and cloaks for other people.  I shall send out a card to the ladies near-by and put an advertisement in the Haddington newspaper, and God can make my needle sharp enough for the battle.  Don’t cry, mother!  Oh, darling, don’t cry!  We have God and each other, and none can call us desolate.”

“But you will break your heart, Jean.  You canna help it.  And I canna take your love and happiness to brighten my old age.  It isna right.  I’ll not do it.  You must go to Gavin.  I will go to my brother David.”

“I will not break my heart, mother.  I will not shed a tear for the false, mean lad, that you were so kind to for fourteen years, when there was no one else to love him.  Aye, I know he paid for his board and schooling, but he never could pay for the mother-love you gave him, just because he was motherless.  And who has more right to have their life brightened by my love than you have?  Beside, it is my happiness to brighten it, and so, what will you say against it?  And I will not go to Gavin.  Not one step.  If he wants me now, he will come for me, and for you, too.  This is sure as death!  Oh, mammy!  Mammy, darling, a false lad shall not part us!  Never!  Never!  Never!”

“Jean!  Jean!  What will I say at all”

“What would my father say, if he was here this minute?  He would say, ’you are right, Jean!  And God bless you, Jean!  And you may be sure that it is all for the best, Jean!  So take the right road with a glad heart, Jean!’ That is what father would say.  And I will never do anything to prevent me looking him straight in the face when we meet again.  Even in heaven I shall want him to smile into my eyes and say, ’Well done, Jean!’”

CHAPTER II.

Jean’s plans for the future were humble and reasonable enough to insure them some measure of success, and the dreaded winter passed not uncomfortably away.  Then in the summer Uncle David Nicoll came to Lambrig and boarded with his sister, paying a pound a week, and giving her, on his departure, a five-pound note to help the next winter’s expenses.  This order of things went on without change or intermission for five years, and the little cottage gradually gathered in its clean, sweet rooms, many articles of simple use and beauty.  Mrs. Anderson took entire charge of the housekeeping.  Jean’s needle flew swiftly from morning to night, and though the girl had her share of the humiliations and annoyances incident to her position, these did not interfere with the cheerful affection and mutual help which brightened their lonely life.

She heard nothing from Gavin.  After some painful correspondence, in which neither would retract a step from the stand they had taken, Gavin ceased writing, and Jean ceased expecting, though before this calm was reached she had many a bitter hour the mother never suspected.  But such hours were to Jean’s soul what the farmer’s call “growing weather;” in them much rich thought and feeling sprang up insensibly; her nature ripened and mellowed and she became a far lovelier woman than her twentieth year had promised.