"Ay, ay, the wind cleared the air," observed Ailsie. "It's an ill wind that blaws naebody good."
"But think of your poor son at sea," observed Harry.
"I was just thinking o' him when I spake, Master Harry. I was thinking that maybe that verra wind was filling the sails o' his ship, and blawing him hame all the faster, to cheer the eyes o' his mither. It is sure to be in the right quarter for some one, let it blaw from north, south, east, or west."
"Why, there's little Ruth Laurie just before us," cried Harry, as he turned a bend in the woodland path. "What a great bundle of fagots she is carrying bravely on her little back!"
"Let's ask her after her sick mother," said Nina, running up to the orphan child, who was well-known to the Delmars.
Ruth dwelt with her mother in a very small cottage near the wood; and the children were allowed to visit the widow in her poor but respectable home.
"Blessings on the wee barefooted lassie!" exclaimed Ailsie. "I'll be bound, she's been up with the lark, to gather up the broken branches which the wind has stripped from the trees."
"That's a heavy bundle for you to carry, Ruth!" said Harry. "It is almost as big as yourself."
"I shouldn't mind carrying it were it twice as heavy and big," cried the peasant child, looking up with a bright, happy smile. "Coals be terrible dear, and we've not a stick of wood left in the shed; and mother, she gets so chilly of an evening. There's nothing she likes so well as a hot cup of tea and a good warm fire; your dear mamma gives us the tea, and you see I've the wood for boiling the water. Won't mother be glad when she sees my big fagots; and wasn't I pleased when I heard the wind blowing last night, for I knew I should find branches strewn about in the morning!"
"Ah," cried Harry, "that reminds me of the proverb: 'Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good."