"'Ah, poor Lagwine,' she sighed, 'he is devoted to his old master. He would not hurt a hair of his head or of anybody's head. Only sometimes, when he finds the door open, my poor Roger will slip out, and then nobody else can find him on these weariful hills.'
"Then I asked her of the younger children whom I had been engaged to teach.
"'They are my grandchildren,' she said; 'you can hear them upstairs.'
"And through the clamour of voices, that of the young man I had seen rang loudest of all.
"'They are playing with their father?' I said.
"She shook her head. 'They are the children of my daughter Isobel,' she said. 'She married Captain Fergus, of the Engineers, her own cousin, and died on her way out to the West Indies. So Algernon brought them home, and here they are settled on us. And what with my husband's wastefulness before he was laid aside, and the poor rents of the hill farms nowadays, I know not what we shall do. Indeed, if it were not for my dear son Harry we could not live. He takes care of everything, and is most scrupulous and saving.'
"So when she had told me all this, I lay still and thought. And the lady's hand went slower and slower across my head till it ceased altogether.
"'I cannot expect you to remain with us after this, Miss Chrystie,' she said, 'and yet I know not what I shall do without you. I think we should have loved one another.'
"I told her that I was not going away—that I was not afraid at all.
"'But, to tell you the truth, my dear,' she said, 'I do not rightly see where your wages are to come from.'