She'll be a' richt the morn's mornin'. A
woman wi' ae son's like a coo wi' ae horn, some kittle (ticklish), ye
ken. I cud see in her een haill coal-pits o' affection. She wad dee for
ye, afore ye cud say-???'Dinna, mither.'"
Next day they went to call on Professor Fraser. He received them
kindly, and thanked Mrs Forbes for her attentions to his niece. But he
seemed oppressed and troubled. His niece was far from well, he
said???-had not left her room for some weeks, and could see no one.
Mrs Forbes associated Alec's conduct with Kate's illness, but said
nothing about her suspicions. After one day more, she returned home,
reassured by but not satisfied with her visit. She felt that Alec had
outgrown his former relation to her, and had a dim perception that her
pride had prevented them from entering upon a yet closer relation. It
is their own fault when mothers lose by the _growth_ of their children.
CHAPTER LXXVIII.
Meantime, Annie was passing through a strange experience. It gave her a
dreadful shock to know that such things were reported of her hero, her
champion. They could not be true, else Chaos was come again. But when
no exultant denial of them arrived from the pen of his mother, although
she wrote as she had promised, then she understood by degrees that the
youth had erred from the path, and had denied the Lord that bought him.
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