“Oh! it is Allison Bain, is it? So you are come already. I have seen your friend Dr Fleming, since you left.”
“Dr Fleming was kind to me when I sore needed kindness.”
Her eyes searched wistfully the minister’s face, and it came into his mind that she was wondering how much of her story had been told to him.
“Dr Fleming said many kind things about you, and I trust it may prove for the good of us all, that we have been brought together,” said he.
In his esteem it was no small thing that this poor soul who had suffered and perhaps sinned—though looking in her face he could not think it—should have been given into their care. But nothing more could be said. A soft, shrill voice came from a room on the other side of the house.
“Are you coming, father? I am here, waiting for you.”
“Ah, yes! Ay waiting, my bonny dooie (little dove).”
When his wife entered the room, he was sitting in silence with the pale cheek of his only daughter resting against his. A fair, fragile little creature she was, whose long, loose garments falling around her, showed that she could not run and play like other children, whatever might be the cause. It was a smile of perfect content which met her mother’s look.
“Well, mother,” said she softly.
“Well, my dear, you are happy now. But you are not surely going to keep your father in his damp clothes? And tea will soon be ready.”