"You have helped me enormously," he said. "I am not going to fight shy of my responsibility as a father any longer."
"Shags," said Rowena, taking hold of a golden brown ear, "am I a hundred years old? Is it always the role of a person on her back to dole out advice to her visitors? Am I, a single woman, to occupy my leisure thoughts in studying a child's character, and the suitable training for her? I am going now to read the most frivolous book I have by me, just to forget the moralities and gravity of life, and to imagine myself a young dog like yourself."
[CHAPTER IV]
THE BIRTHDAY GIFT
"A glory gilds the sacred page,
Majestic like the sun
It gives a light to every age;
It gives, but borrows none."
Cowper.
ROWENA was moved into her boat the next day. And the sun shone down upon her in real friendliness. Of course Shags accompanied her; and for a couple of hours Colin rowed her over the loch; then, feeling she must not take him longer from his work in the garden, she made him moor the boat to the side of the small landing pier, and there, with her hands dabbling in the cool water, Rowena lay and meditated, and read for another couple of hours. She hardly knew which she liked best, the motion or the stillness.
Granny came out at tea-time and suggested her moving in.
"I could stay here for ever and ever!" exclaimed Rowena. "What is it about the loch that sends such peace and rest into one's soul?"
"It's the still waters," said Granny. She murmured to herself, "'He leadeth me beside the still waters.'"
Rowena never took any notice when the Bible was quoted to her.