“Eh, my dear, how thankful you must be,” was all Helen’s reply; but it seemed to Lily that the old minister in his big chair by the fireside gave her a glance which was not so all-believing as Helen’s.

“It was just an extraordinary piece of good luck for the young man,” the minister said. “Things seldom happen so pat in real life. But a young lady like you, Miss Lily, likes the part of the good Samaritan.”

She could not look him full in the face, and the laugh with which he ended his speech seemed the most cruel of mocking sounds to poor Lily. She put up her hands to her tumbled hair.

“May I go to your room and make myself tidy?” she said to Helen. “I had to run most of the way with Rory, and my skirt so long for riding. I don’t know what sort of dreadful person they must have thought me in the town.”

“Nobody but will think all the better of you for your kindness,” said Helen, “and we’ll soon mend your skirt, for there’s really little harm done. And I think you should have the gig from the inn to drive you back, my dear, for your nerves are shaken, and the afternoon’s getting late, and you must not stir from here till you have got a good rest and a cup of tea.”

“The gig may perhaps take me back to the inn first,” said Ronald, “for it is there I am staying—for the fishing,” he added, unable to keep out of his eyes a half-comic glance at the companion of his trouble.

“Indeed, you are going back to no inn,” said Helen; “you are just going to stay at the Manse, where you will be much better attended to; and Lily, my dear, you’ll come and see Mr. Lumsden, that owes so much to you already, and that will help to make him feel at home here.”

But when Lily came down stairs, smoothed and brushed, with her hair trim, and the flush dying off her cheeks, and her skirt mended, though in many ways the accident had ended most fortunately, she could not meet the smile in the old minister’s eyes.

CHAPTER XIV

There was great excitement in the Tower when the gig from “the toun” was seen slowly climbing the brae. Almost every-body in the house was in commotion, and Beenie, half crazy with anxiety, had been at the window for hours watching for Lily’s return, and indulging in visions and conjectures which her companions knew nothing of. All that Dougal and Katrin thought of was an accident. Though, as they assured each other, Rory’s bark was worse than his bite, it was yet quite possible that in one of his cantrips he might have thrown the inexperienced rider in her long skirt; and even if she was not hurt, she might have found it impossible to catch him again and might have to toil home on foot, which would account for the lateness of the hour. Or she might have sprained her ankle or even broken her arm as she fell, and been unable to move. When these fears began to take shape, the boy had been sent off flying on the black pony to the scene of the picnic, the only argument against this hypothesis being that, had any such accident happened, Rory by this time would in all probability have reached home by himself. Beenie, I need not say, was tormented by other fears. Was it possible that they had fled together, these two who had now fully discovered that they could not live without each other? Had he carried her away, as it had been on the cards he should have done three months ago? and a far better solution than any other of the problem. These ideas alternated in Robina’s mind with the suggestion of an accident. She did not believe in an accident. Lily had always been masterful, able to manage any thing that came in her way, “beast or bird,” as Beenie said, and was it likely she would be beaten by Rory, a little Highland pony, when she had ridden big horses by Sir Robert’s side, and never stumbled? Na. “She’ll just have gone away with him,” Beenie said to herself, and though she felt wounded that the plan had not been revealed to her, she was not sorry, only very anxious, feeling that Lily would certainly find some opportunity of sending her a word, and telling her where to join them. “It is, maybe, the best way out of it,” she said over and over again to herself, and accordingly she was less moved by Katrin’s wailings than that good woman could understand. Katrin and Dougal were out upon the road, while Beenie kept her station at the window. And Dougal’s fears for the young lady were increased by alarms about his pony, an older and dearer friend than Lily. “If the poor beast has broken his knees, I’ll ne’er forgive myself for letting that bit lassie have the charge of him alone.”