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Updated: June 1, 2025
And the one just beside it of darker grey, was father's. Father's hair was rich and beautiful too. The dark brown one was Janet's and the fair one Elspie's. "And ye can tell whose is the mouse-coloured one," said Auntie Janet teasingly. "Aye," said Auntie Flora. "They're never done talkin' about my mouse-coloured hair; but they'll soon have to stop because it's gettin' white!" she added gaily.
Her shattered health supplied sufficient excuse for the utter abandonment of all a mother's duties, and the poor feeble spark of life was left to Elspie's cherishing. By night and by day the child knew no other resting-place than the old nurse's arms, the mother's seeming to be for ever closed to its helpless innocence.
Gavin Grant at the head of his own table dispensing hospitality to his guest was a different person from the shy boy she knew. Here he was a man with an air of authority, strong and yet kind and gentle. He soon forgot his embarrassment in the joy of her presence. They grew very merry over Auntie Elspie's beau again, Gavin taking great credit to himself for having arranged the match.
It cast no shadow over the memory of the deep affection lost, to say that the full tide of living love now flowed towards Mrs. Rothesay as it had never done before, perhaps never would have done but for Elspie's death. And truly the mother's heart now thirsted for that flood.
Elspie's love for her father was intense; her pity for him in his misfortunes was very tender; and, now that he was brought face to face with, perhaps, the greatest danger that had ever befallen him, her anxiety to relieve and comfort him was very touching.
Not a coward thread in her whole body had little Elspie, and in less time than the story could ever be told, all was over, and safely; and there they sat on the ground, the two, locked in each other's arms, Donald's beard gone, and much of his hair; Elspie's pretty golden hair also blackened, burned. It was the first thing Donald saw after he made sure danger was past.
It was early in June that Elspie had had the spinning-bee to which Katie had brought the unwelcome Donald. The summer sped past, but a faster summer than any reckoned on the calendar of months and days was speeding in Elspie's heart. Such great love as Donald's reaches and warms its object as inevitably as the heat of a fire warms those near it.
He listened with interest to Elspie's delighted eulogiums on her beloved charge, which sometimes went so far as to point out the beauty of the child's wan face, with the assurance that Olive, in features at least, was a true Rothesay. But the father always stopped her with a dignified, cold look. "We will quit that subject, if you please."
When she had Elspie by her side, and was busily at work in helping on all the preparations for the wedding, the worst was over. There was a strange blending of pang and pleasure in the work. Katie wondered at herself; but it grew clearer and clearer to her each day that since Donald could not be hers she was glad he was Elspie's.
What change? That from life to death from earth to heaven! And would it take place at once? Could they tell the instant when Elspie's soul departed "to be beyond the sun"? Such and so strange were the thoughts that floated through the mind of this child of twelve years old. And from these precocious yearnings after the infinite, Olive's fancy turned to earthly, childish things.
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