Betty Grier

We miss her cheery, motherly presence in the house; and, though it was looking far ahead, we planned a future for Betty as we drove along.

When we reached Blackford Hall I found more than a kenspeckle countryside to remind me of homeland. In the hall was a carpet-bag which I recognised as a Hebron heirloom I had often seen in Nathan's back-room. Two large pictures, indifferently packed and tied round with rope-line, were placed against the hat-rack. One, from the corner of the frame which was uncovered, I knew to be the oil-painting of my father and mother; and the other, from the new brilliancy of the gold, I recognised as Désirée's painting of Nith Bridge. Nathan's old hazel walking-stick, which daily he carried to his work, was lying along the top of the carpet-bag, tied securely to the leather handles.

'Désirée, my dear,' I said, with a happy flutter in my heart, 'I do believe Betty's come back.'

She looked at me with a wondering smile on her face, as much as to say, 'Too good to be true;' and, acting on a common impulse, we rushed upstairs like expectant bairns.

There, in the little room facing southward, which we already called Betty's room, on a low chair before an empty fireplace, sat the dear old soul with her chin on her breast and fast asleep. Her bonnet-strings were loosened and lay over her shoulder, and her hands were tucked underneath a Paisley shawl, which was folded across her knees.

We tiptoed in and stood quietly beside her, Désirée on her right and I on her left. Slowly she opened two wondering eyes, and with a bewildered gaze she looked around her. It was Désirée's hand she grasped. 'Oh, weans,' she said, 'I'm awfu' sorry to bother ye; but I'm back! I juist couldna stey away, an' ye maunna be angry wi' me for'–

My wife had knelt down beside her. Betty's face nestled into her cheek, and the rest of the sentence was lost to me in smothered sobbing. And I waited beside them in silence till the solace from one kindly heart had crept into the other. Then I left them, and quietly closed the door.

Betty, my own Betty Grier, as long, long ago you prepared a place for me within your big, warm, loving heart, so have you sanctified to yourself a place in mine; as you sheltered and cared for me in my spring of life, so will I shelter and care for you when your winter comes, when the cold wind tirls the leaf and it falls.

THE END