“Oh! Janet, I’m better now. I dinna need it. Give it to Graeme. She looks as if she needed something to do her good. What ails you, Graeme?”
“My dear,” remonstrated Janet, “rise up when I bid you; and go to the sofa, and I’ll go up the stair for the bottle.”
Marian laid herself wearily down. In a moment Mrs Nasmyth reappeared with a bottle and spoon in one hand, and a pillow in the other, and when the bitter draught was fairly swallowed, Marian was laid down and covered and caressed with a tenderness that struck Graeme as strange; for though Janet loved them all well, she was not in the habit of showing her tenderness by caresses. In a little, Marian slept. Janet did not resume her work immediately, but sat gazing at her with eyes as full of wistful tenderness as ever a mother’s could have been. At length, with a sigh, she turned to her basket again.
“Miss Graeme,” said she, in a little, “I dinna like to hear you speak that way about changes, as though they did not come from God, and as though He hadna a right to send them to His people when He pleases.”
“I canna help it, Janet. No change that can come to us can be for the better.”
“That’s true, but we must even expect changes that are for the worse; for just as sure as we settle down in this world content, changes will come. You mind what the Word says, ‘As an eagle stirreth up her nest.’ And you may be sure, if we are among the Lord’s children, He’ll no leave us to make a portion of the rest and peace that the world gives. He is kinder to us than we would be to ourselves.”
A restless movement of the sleeper by her side, arrested Janet’s words, and the old look of wistful tenderness came back into her eyes as she turned toward her. Graeme rose, and leaning over the arm of the sofa, kissed her softly.
“How lovely she is!” whispered she.
A crimson flush was rising on Marian’s cheeks as she slept.
“Ay, she was aye bonny,” said Janet, in the same low voice, “and she looks like an angel now.”