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But long before she was well, his family saw that the change for the better which had been evident in Steenie's mental condition for some time before Phemy's illness, was now manifesting itself plainly in his person. The intense compassion which, that memorable morning, roused his spirit even to the glorifying of his visage, seemed now settling in his looks and clarifying them.
All the night long and Kirsty knew he was near Steenie was roving within sight of the window where the light was burning. He did not know that Phemy was ill; pity for her heart-ache drew him thither. As soon as he thought his sister would be up, he went in: the door was never locked. She heard him, and came to him. The moment he learned Phemy's condition, he said he would go for the doctor.
Kirsty lifted the blanket: there was Phemy's face, blind with the white death! It did not look at her, did not recognise her: Phemy was there and not there! Phemy was far away! Phemy could not move from where she lay! Hopeless, Kirsty yet tried her best to wake her from her snow-sleep, shrinking from nothing, except for the despair of it.
She entered the cave, tumbled over one of the forms, and gave a cry coupled with an imprecation. "The deevil roast them 'at laid me sic a trap!" she said. "I hae broken the shins the auld markis laudit!" "Hold your wicked tongue!" hissed a voice in return, almost in Phemy's very ear.
Their free, hearty, simple bearing, in which was neither smallest roughness nor least suggestion of affected refinement, was not to Phemy's taste, and she began to assume condescending ways. It was of course a humiliation to Phemy to have an aunt in Mrs.
"Is it possible!" thought Miss Beaufort, as he approached, and the ingenuous expression of his fine countenance was directed towards her; "can this noble creature have been the subject of such impertinence!" "I commend little Phemy's taste!" whispered Lord Berrington, leaving his seat. "Ha! Miss Beaufort, a young Apollo?"
Coming at length to a spot where he heard the rushing of a stream, he found he could go no farther: the roof of the cave had fallen, and blocked up the way with huge masses of stone and earth. He had come a good distance certainly, but by no means so far as Phemy's imagination had represented the reach of the cavern. He might however have missed a turn, he thought.
As his hands were still pressed on his ears, he heard nothing of Phemy's approach, and she stood for a while staring at him in the vague glimmer, apparently with no anxiety as to what was to come next.
Kirsty always enjoyed the winter heartily. For one thing, it roused her poetic faculty oh, how different in its outcome from Phemy's! far more than the summer. That very afternoon, leaving Steenie with his mother, she paid a visit to the weem, and there, in the heart of the earth, made the following little song, addressed to the sky-soaring lark:
Once or twice Gordon, at Phemy's entreaty, went and took tea with her at her father's, and was cordially received by the schoolmaster, who had no sense of impropriety in their strolling out together afterward, leaving him well content with the company of his books. Before this had happened twice, all the town was talking about it, and predicting evil.