Chapter XIV. The Meeting Place - Page 2

daylight next morn to whar' she cam' frae. Elder Mackelvine made a grand exhort in the next meeting anent slandering folks; for Janet Caird was a gude text for it; and Kirsty Buchan said, it was a' the gude Pittenloch e'er got oot o' her."

"David was here then?"

"Ay, he was here. Didna ye ken that?"

"Was there ony ither body here?"

"Ay, there was. A week syne here comes that bonnie young Allan Campbell that was aye sae fond o' your brither Davie."

"Did he stay here wi' you?"

"Ay, for sure he did. For three days he stayed; and he just daundered roun' the boats and the beach, and lookit sae forlorn, wanting Davie and the bonnie boat that had gane to the bottom, that folks were sorry for him. He gied Elder Mackelvine twenty pounds for the widows o' Pittenloch, and he gied me mysel' a five pound note; and I could hae kissed the vera footmarks he made, he was that kindly and sorrowfu'."

"Did he name my name, Mysie?"

"Ay, he did that. He sat in Davie's chair every night, and talked to me anent you a' the time maistly; and he said, 'Mysie, she'll maybe come back some day; and if ever she does, you'll tell her I was here, and that I missed her sairly; and he left a bit of paper for you wi' me. I'll get it for you, when we hae had our breakfast."

"Get it the noo, Mysie. I'm fain to see it; and I dinna want my breakfast much--and shut the door, and run the bolt in, Mysie; I'm no caring to see folk."

It was one of those letters which we have forgotten how to write--large letter cap, folded within itself, and sealed with scarlet wax. It was, "Dearest Maggie! Sweetest Maggie! Best beloved of women!" It was full of tenderness, and trust, and sorrow, and undying affection. Maggie's tears washed it like a shower of rain. Maggie's kisses sealed every promise, and returned to the writer ten-fold every word of its passionate mournful devotion.

She did not now regret her journey. Oh, she would most gladly have walked every mile of the way, to have found that letter at the end of it. "He'll come back here," she thought; "love will bring him back, and I know by myself how glad he will be to hae a word from me." In the drawer of the table in Allan's room there was some paper and wax. Allan's letter had been written with his pocket pencil, but she found among David's old papers the remains of several pencils, and with some little difficulty she made them sufficiently sharp to express what she wished to say.

She told him everything--where she had spent the time since they parted --how good Miss Campbell had been to her--how impossible it would have been to desert her in an hour of such need and peril--how much she had suffered in her broken tryst, and how longingly and lovingly she would wait for him at Drumloch, though she