"You are right, Mrs Stirling. You have been a kind friend to my mother
and my cousin Lilias, they tell me, and I thank you from my heart."
Nancy looked not a little discomfited at this unexpected answer.
"It would have been liker Hugh Blair to turn on his heel and go his own
way," said she afterwards; "but it may be that many a thing that was
laid to his door in the old days belonged less to him than to those who
beguiled him into evil, poor lad! And, whether or not, it would ill
become me to cast up to him his past ill-deeds to-day."
"And all the folk were so glad to see him!" said Archie when he came
home. Hugh was lingering outside, speaking to a friend who had walked
with them over the hills, and Archie spoke fast and earnestly to have
all told before he came in. "And they all minded on you, aunt, and said
how thankful you would be, and how the Lord was good to you in your old
age. And James Muir said he hoped he was never to go away again; and
Allan Grant said that English Smith was to give up Glen Elder, and why
should it not go back into the old hands again? They all said he would
surely stay in the countryside now."
"And what said my son to that?" asked Mrs Blair tremulously. She had
not ventured to ask him herself yet.
"Oh, he said little. I think it was because his heart was so full.
And, Lily, he put five golden sovereigns into the poor's box! Steenie
Muir told me that he saw his grandfather count it, and he heard him say
that now surely the Lord was to bring back the good days to Glen Elder;
and he thanked God for your sake, aunt. And, Lily, who kens but you may
be `the wee white Lily of Glen Elder' again?"
"A `wee white Lily,' indeed," said her aunt fondly and gravely; but
Lilias laughed, first at the thought of the golden sovereigns and
Nancy's "nine-and-twenty more," destined still to be hidden away in the
china teapot, and then a little at being called the "Lily of Glen
Elder."
"It's like a story in a book, aunt. It would be too much happiness to
have the old days come back again--the happy days at Glen Elder;" and
then her ready tears flowed at the thought that followed--
"They can never--never quite come back again."