An Old, Unhappy, Far-off Thing

I’m deein’ and ask her to come down and speak to me afore I’m gone.’

“ Master, I went. Margaret was sit- ting in her room all alone in the cold and dark, staring at the wall. I told her what our father had said. She never let on she heard me. I pleaded and wept, Master. I did what I had never done to any human creature —— I kneeled to her and begged her, as she hoped for mercy herself, to come down and see our dying father. Master, she wouldn’t! She never moved or looked at me. I had to get up and go downstairs and tell that old man she would not come.”

Janet Gordon lifted her hands and struck them together in her agony of re- membrance.

“ When I told father he only said, oh, so gently,

“ ‘ Poor lass, I was too hard on her. She isna to blame. But I canna go to meet her mother till our little lass has forgie’n me for the name I called her.

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