A Daughter of Fife

But David had marked out his course, and he was not the man to permit any

woman to seriously interfere with his plans. He put down with a mighty

will his grief and disappointment, and shame, and went off to the Hebrides

with his pupil. But in spite of himself, Maggie went with him. He was

compelled to be very economical, and he could not quite get rid of

anxiety, and of planning for the future, which the change in his money

affairs forced upon him. And it was all Maggie's fault. "Her weakness,

her craving 'to be made of,' and to be happy, her inability to bear a

little feminine gossip, her longing after the companionship of himself

--or another." Maggie, after all, spoiled the trip to which he had looked

forward for half a year with longing and delight.

When he returned to the Candleriggs, the first thing he saw was a letter

from Maggie. It had been lying upon his table for some weeks. In fact

Maggie had written it soon after her removal to Drumloch, but she did not

wish to post it from so small a place, and she therefore waited until her

first visit to Glasgow, which occurred early in August. She had remembered

the time when it was possible that David might go to Pittenloch, and she

feared that he would be very miserable when he found out that she had

never returned to Kinkell. Without revealing her own location or

circumstances, she wished to satisfy him as far as possible of her

innocence and welfare; so she had thus written-"Dear Davie. I am feared you will not get this, ere you find out I did not

go back yonder day you sent me. I have met with good friends, and am

living honest and happy. Have no fear anent me. I will do right, and do

well. Where I am there is no ill can be said of me, and no ill can come to

me. I was glad beyond telling to read of your well-doing. You'll win to

the top of the tree, Davie, I aye thought that. Some day, you will find it

in your heart to love Maggie, and to forgive her, that she was forced to

lay an anxious thought on you. Your true, loving sister, Maggie Promoter."

The letter was a comfort to him, and for a moment or two a great surprise.

The writing was Maggie's writing, but much improved, the spelling was

correct. It was evident that she was trying to teach herself, and it

pleased him somewhat; although he was far from considering education as a

necessity for women. "To think of Maggie reading the newspapers!" he

exclaimed; "but then," he reflected, "she had doubtless been looking for a

word about him," and with this thought, he became just, even tender, to

her memory. As he folded away the letter, he said, "I was wrong to think

wrong of her. She was always a good girl, and very fond of me. It would be

long ere she would do aught to hurt my good name. It's no to be thought

of." So with a lighter heart he went bravely to work again, and the weeks

and months in their busy monotony passed wisely and quickly away.