“There was great lamentation among the bairns this morning when I said something about Miss Jean maybe leaving us; but they took great comfort from the recollection that they had learned to write so well that they might send real post letters to her—­not mere make-believes—­and she promised to answer them.  Tam says if she goes to London she must keep on the look-out for anything that is in his line, and indeed Miss Jean said she would.  It is a real blessing that penny post.  In my young days, to think of writing back and fore to London about anything ye wanted to know would have been out of the question for poor folk,” said Peggy.

“You must write to me, too,” said Francis, “about all the things and all the people you see, and how you like them, and if you tire of London or of teaching—­just every mood as you feel it.  I do not think it was quite fair in you always showing me the brightest side of your life.  I do not mean to show you always mine.”

“When you are disappointed because the workmen will not build the cottages fast enough, or because the inhabitants do not keep them as clean as your fastidious taste thinks necessary, or because the dull Scottish brain will not readily take up the Flemish or French ideas you want to engraft in them, you will write all your indignant or disgusted expressions to me, rather than lose patience with the people themselves—­it is safer.  I am prepared for some disappointments, but I will wait patiently and in hope for the end.”

“Did you always have this large amount of public spirit, Jane?  It struck me very forcibly the first evening you spent with me at my house.”

“I think it lay dormant for a few months before my uncle’s death,” said Jane, laughing; “but it came out stronger than ever afterwards.  Francis is very grave to-day.  I would not trust him with your verses, Elsie; his criticisms will be far too severe in his present mood.”

“But I will trust him just at this very time,” said Elsie; “for if this dull morning has made him a little depressed, perhaps he may feel a little for me sitting in my cheerless room, without hope and without society.  I beg your pardon, Jane, you are always good and kind, and so was Peggy, and every one; but it was so dull—­so very dull.  But what I mean is, that if Francis is moody and dispirited, as a great many people are at times, my verses will not seem to him such a wail as to the busy, merry world we live in.  I never saw a more favourable-looking critic.”

Elsie then went to her drawer, and for the first time since she had tied up her manuscript touched it without a sick pang at her heart.  The very sight of the enveloping brown paper had been odious to her:  but to-day she felt courage enough to untie it, and to select a few of what she considered her best pieces for her cousin’s perusal.

Much depends on the mood of the reader of poetry.  Francis did not find Elsie’s sad views of life at all overdrawn, and he pointed out both to her and to Jane many fine passages, and what he considered to be pretty images.  Here and there he found fault; but, on the whole, he said Elsie’s verses were full of promise, and she only had to wait patiently for awhile—­to observe as well as to reflect, and not to be quite so subjective—­to attain to excellence.