“Oh Jamie, why did you not go to the post office before this?”
“I was getting ready for my exam——”
“Gie me the letters, laddie.”
“And I could not get off till this morning.”
There was a long letter from Cluny, but it was not the delayed letter; and when Jamie had gone home, she gave her whole heart to the reading of it. Then she turned anxiously to the other two. Both of them contained small checks for poems written so long ago that she had quite forgotten them. They were, however, veritable godsends, and she thanked God for them. Now she could go to work. She could even take time to make her foolish heroine do the proper thing. She felt as rich, with her two pounds, as if the two had been twenty. And Cluny was on his way home! Her letter had been posted at Auckland, and he was about to leave there, for home, when he wrote.
The novel now progressed rapidly. It was writing itself, and “The Daughter of the Sea” was all the company Christine wanted. Norman came up the hill once in the day, or he sent his son Will, in his place, and Jamie always ate his lunch beside Aunt Christine, and sometimes Judith called to see if there was any news of Cluny. Sunday was her day of trial. Ill-will can make itself felt, and never say a word, and Christine noticed that everyone 309 drew away from her. If Judith, or Peter Brodie, or anyone spoke to her, they were at once set apart. Everyone else drew away, and the very girls to whom she had been kindest, drew furthest away.
It was, perhaps, a good thing for her. She only drew the closer to God, and her pen was a never-failing friend and companion. The days flew by, in the nights she slept and dreamed, and now and then the Domine came in, and comforted and strengthened her. Then she read him little chapters from her book, and he gave her much good advice, and sufficient praise to encourage her. So week after week went on, and though the whole village really disapproved of her retaining the Ruleson cottage, she nearly forgot the circumstance. And the book grew and grew in beauty, day by day, until on one lovely June afternoon, the pretty heroine married Sandy Gilhaize, and behaved very well ever afterward.
The Domine came in and found her flushed and excited over the wedding, and the parting, and he took the book away with him, and told her he would look after its sale, and she was to worry no more about it. “Try and forget it exists, Christine, then neither your wishing nor your fearing will interfere with the fortune your good angel intends for it.”
“I am going to gie the house a good clean, frae the roof to the doorstep,” she answered, “and when I hae that business on hand, it is all I can think about.”