It was toward evening, at the close of a lovely September day, that a rough equipage laden with luggage, with a black retriever gamboling joyously beside it, crept rather slowly down the long lovely road by the Deeside leading to Rowan-Glen, one of those rare gems of Highland scenery that are set so ruggedly in the Cairngorm Mountains.

Fay had just sheltered her sleeping baby from the rays of the setting sun; and sat wearily in the jolting carriage, trying to recall all the familiar landmarks that greeted her eyes.

There were the grounds and preserves of Moncrieff, with their lovely fringes of dark pine-trees and silvery birches, and a little further on the wicket gate that led down to the falls or linn of Rowan-Glen.

By and by came a few low cottages built of graystone, and thatched with heather fastened down with a rough network of ropes. One or two of them were covered with honeysuckle and clematis, and had tiny gardens filled with vegetables and flowers, pinks and roses mingling in friendly confusion with gooseberry bushes and cabbages.A narrow planked passage ran through the cottages, with a door at the other end opening on to a small field, with the usual cow-house, peat and straw stacks, and a little shed inhabited by a few scraggy cocks and hens which, with “ta coo” herself, are the household property of all, even the poorest, of the Highland peasants.

Fay looked eagerly past them, and for a moment forgot her trouble and weariness; for there, in the distance, as they turned the corner, stretched the long irregular range of the Cairngorm Mountains, with the dark shadow of the Forest of Mar at their base; while to the right, far above the lesser and more fertile hills, rose the snowy heads of those stately patriarchs—Ben-muich-dhui and Ben-na-bourd. Oh, those glorious Highland mountains, with their rugged peaks, against which the fretted clouds “get wrecked and go to pieces.” What a glory, what a miracle they are! On sunny mornings with their infinity of wondrous color so softly, so harmoniously blended; now changing like an opal with every cloud that sails over them, and now with deep violet shadows haunting their hollows, sunny breaks and necks, and long glowing stretches of heather. Well has Jean Ingelow sung of them:

“… White raiment, the ghostly capes that screen them, Of the storm winds that beat them, their thunder rents and scars, And the paradise of purple, and the golden slopes atween them;”

for surely there could not be a grander or fairer scene on God’s earth than this.

A moment later the vehicle stopped before a white gate set in a hedge of tall laurels and arbutus, and the driver got down and came round to the window. “Yonder’s t’ Manse. Will I carry in the boxes for the leddy?”

“No, no, wait a moment,” replied Fay, hurriedly. “I must see if Mrs. Duncan be at home. Will you help me out?” for her limbs were trembling under her, and the weight of the baby was too much for her exhausted strength. She felt as though she could never get to the end of the steep little garden, or reach the stone porch. Yes; it was the same old gray house she remembered, with the small diamond-paned windows twinkling in the sunshine; and as she toiled up the narrow path, with Nero barking delightedly round her, the door opened, and a little old lady with a white hood drawn over her white curls, and a gardening basket on her arm, stepped out into the porch.

Fay gave a little cry when she saw her. “Oh, Mrs. Duncan,” she said; and she and the baby together seemed to totter and collapse in the little old lady’s arms.

“Gracious heavens!” exclaimed the startled woman; then, as her basket and scissors rolled to the ground, “Jean, lass, where are you? here are two bairns, and one of them looks fit to faint—ay, why, it is never our dear little Miss Mordaunt? Why, my bairn—” But at this moment a red-haired, freckled woman, with a pleasant, weather-beaten face, quietly lifted the mother and child, and carried them into a dusky little parlor; and in another minute Fay found herself lying on a couch, and her baby crying lustily in Jean’s arms, while the little old lady was bathing her face with some cold, fragrant water, with the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Ay, my bonnie woman,” she said, “you have given Jean and me a turn; and there’s the big doggie, too, that would be after licking your face—and for all he knows you are better now—like a Christian. Run away, Jean, and warm a sup of milk for the bairn, and may be his mother would like a cup of tea and a freshly baked scone. There give me the baby, and I’ll hold him while you are gone.”

“There’s Andrew bringing in a heap of boxes,” observed Jean, stolidly; “will he be setting them down in the porch? for we must not wake the minister.”

“Ay, ay,” returned Mrs. Duncan, in a bewildered tone; but she hardly took in the sense of Jean’s speech—she was rocking the baby in her old arms and looking at the pretty, white, sunken face that lay on the chintz cushion. Of course it was little Miss Mordaunt, but what did it mean—what could it all mean?

“Mrs. Duncan,” whispered Fay, as she raised herself on her pillow, “I have come to you because I am so unhappy, and I have no other friend. I am married, and this is my baby, and my husband does not want me, and indeed it would have killed me to stop with him, and I have come to you, and he must not find me, and you must take care of baby and me,” and here her tears burst out, and she clung round the old lady’s neck. “I have money, and I can pay the minister; and I am so fond of you both—do let me stay.”“Whisht, whisht, my dearie,” returned Mrs. Duncan, wiping her own eyes and Fay’s. “Of course you shall bide with me; would either Donald or I turn out the shorn lamb to face the tempest? Married, my bairn; why, you look only fit for a cot yourself; and with a bairn of your own, too. And to think that any man could ill-use a creature like that,” half to herself; but Fay drooped her head as she heard her. Mrs. Duncan thought Hugh was cruel to her, and that she had fled from his ill-treatment, and she dare not contradict this notion.

“You must never speak to me of my husband,” continued Fay, with an agitation that still further misled Mrs. Duncan. “I should have died if I had stopped with him; but I ran away, and I knew he would never find me here. I have money enough—ah, plenty—so you will not be put to expense. You may take care of my purse; and I have more—a great deal more;” and Fay held out to the dazzled eyes of the old lady a purse full of bank-notes and glittering gold pieces, which seemed riches itself to her Highland simplicity.

“Ay, and just look at the diamonds and emeralds on your fingers, my dearie; your man must have plenty of this world’s goods. What do they call him, my bairn, and where does he live?” But Fay skillfully fenced these questions. She called herself Mrs. St. Clair, she said, and her husband was a landed proprietor, and lived in one of the midland counties in England; and then she turned Mrs. Duncan’s attention by asking if she and baby might have the room her father slept in. Then Jean brought in the tea and buttered scones, and the milk for the baby; and while Mrs. Duncan fed him, she told Fay about her own trouble.

For the kind, white-headed minister, whom Fay remembered, was lying now in his last illness; he had had two strokes of paralysis, and the third would carry him off, the doctor said.

“One blessing is, my Donald does not suffer,” continued Mrs. Duncan, with a quiver of her lip; “he is quite helpless, poor man, and can not stir himself, and Jean lifts him up as though he were a baby; but he sleeps most of his time, and when he is awake he never troubles—he just talks about the old time, when he brought me first to the Manse; and sometimes he fancies Robbie and Elsie are pulling flowers in the garden—and no doubt they are, the darlings, only it is in the garden of Paradise; and may be there are plenty of roses and lilies there, such as Solomon talked about in the Canticles.”

“And who takes the duty for Mr. Duncan?” asked Fay, who was much distressed to hear this account of her kind old friend.

“Well, our nephew, Fergus, rides over from Corrie to take the services for the Sabbath. He is to be wedded to Lilian Graham, down at the farm yonder, and sometimes he puts up at the Manse and sometimes at the farm; and they do say, when my Donald has gone to the land of the leal, that Fergus will come to the Manse; for though he is young he is a powerful preacher, and even Saint Paul bids Timothy to ‘let no one despise his youth;’ but I am wearying you, my bairn, and Jean has kindled a fire in the pink room, for the nights are chilly, and you and me will be going up, and leaving the big doggie to take care of himself.”

But “the big doggie” was of a different opinion; he quite approved of his hostess, but it was against his principles to allow his mistress to go out of his sight. Things were on a different footing now; and, ever since they had left Redmond Hall, Nero considered himself responsible for the safety of his two charges; so he quietly followed them into the pleasant low-ceiled bedroom, with its window looking over the old-fashioned garden and orchard, and laid himself down with his nose between his paws, watching Jean fill the baby’s bath, to the edification of the two women.

Jean helped Fay unpack a few necessary articles, and then she went down to warm the porridge for her master’s supper; but Mrs. Duncan pinned up her gray stuff gown, and sat down by the fire to undress the baby, while Fay languidly got ready for bed.

It was well that the mother and child had fallen into the hands of these good Samaritans. In spite of her wretchedness and the strange weight that lay so heavy on her young heart, a sort of hazy comfort stole over Fay as she lay between the coarse lavender-scented sheets, and listened to her baby’s cooes as he stretched his little limbs in the warm fire-light.

“Ay, he is as fine and hearty as our Robbie was,” observed Mrs. Duncan, with a sigh; and so she prattled on, now praising the baby’s beauty, and now commenting on the fineness of his cambric shirts, and the value of the lace that trimmed his night-dress, until Fay fell asleep, and thought she was listening to a little brook that had overflowed its banks, and was running down a stony hill-side.

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.

She found him lying on one side of the big bed with brown moreen hangings that she remembered so well, with his white head pillowed high, and his fine old face turned to the setting sun.

He looked at her with a placid smile as she stood beside him—a small girlish figure, now sadly frail and drooping, with her boy in her arms—and held out his left hand—the right arm was helpless.

“Mother and child,” he murmured; “it is always before our eyes, the Divine picture; and old and young, it touches the manhood within us. So you have come to bide a wee with Jeanie and me in the old Manse, my dear young lady; ay, and you are kindly welcome. And folks do say that there is no air so fine as ours, and no milk so pure as our brindled cow gives, and may be it will give you a little color into your cheeks.”

“Don’t you remember me, Mr. Duncan?” asked Fay, somewhat disappointed to find herself treated like an ordinary visitor. “Don’t you remember Fay Mordaunt, the little girl who used to play with you in the orchard? but I am afraid I was older than I looked.”

“Elsie used to play with me in the orchard,” replied the old man, wistfully; “but Jeanie says she has gone to Heaven with wee Robbie. Nay, I never remember names, except Jeanie—and may be Jean comes handy. And there is one I never forget—the name of my Lord Jesus;” and he bowed his old head reverently.“Come away, my bairn; Donald will have plenty to say to you another time,” said Mrs. Duncan, kindly. “He is a bit drowsy now, and he is apt to wander at such times.” But the minister heard her, and a sort of holy smile lit up his rugged face.

“Ay, but He’ll not let me wander far; I have always got a grip of His hand, and if my old feet stumble a bit I’m just lifted up. No, I could not forget His name, which is just Love, and nothing else. But perhaps you are right, Jennie, lass, and I am a bit sleepy. Take both the bairns away, and watch over them as though they were lambs of the fold—and so they are lambs of His fold,” finished the old man. “And may be the Shepherd found them straying, poor bit creatures, and sent them here for you and me to mind, my woman.”