defilement; the gutter sagged, a slate drooped drunkenly from the straight line of the eaves, whilst the courtyard in front was empty, unraked, and green with weeds.
Startled by these slight but revealing variations which so transfigured the exterior of the house, and stirred with a sudden fear of what she might discover within, Mary moved quickly up the steps and rang the bell. Her trepidation increased as she stood for a long time waiting, but at last the door opened slowly and she beheld, against the dimness beyond, the thin, unformed figure of Nessie. The sisters looked at each other, exclaimed together 'Nessie!' 'Mary!' then, with a mingling cry, rushed into each other's arms.
'Mary! Oh, Mary!' Nessie cried brokenly, unable in her emotion to do more than repeat the name and clinging to her sister in utter abandon. 'My own, dear Mary!'
'Nessie! Dear Nessie!' whispered Mary, herself overcome by an excess feeling. 'I'm so happy to see you again. I've often longed for this when I've been away.'
'You'll never leave me any more, will you, Mary?' sobbed Nessie. 'I've wanted you so much! Hold me tight and never let me go.'
'I'll never leave you, dearie! I've come back just to be with you!'
'I know! I know!' wept Nessie. 'It's good of you to do it, but, oh! I've needed you sorely since Mamma died. I've had nobody! I've been frightened!'
'Don't cry, dearest,' whispered Mary, drawing her sister's head against her breast and gently stroking her brow. 'You're all right, now. Don't be frightened any more.'
'You don't know what I've come through,' cried Nessie frantically. 'It's like Heaven to see you back; but it's a wonder I'm here at all.'
'Hush, dearie, hush I don't want you to upset yourself and be ending up with a sore, wee head.'
'It's my heart that's been sore,' said the younger sister, turning up her red-lidded, burning eyes. 'I didn't love you enough when I had you, Mary, but I'll make up for it. Everything's so different now. I need you so much I'll do anything, if you'll just bide with me.'
'I'll do that, dear,' replied Mary consolingly. 'Just dry your eyes and you can tell me all about it. Here's my handkerchief for you!'
'It's just like old times for you to give me this,' sniffed Nessie, releasing her sister's arm, taking the proffered handkerchief, and applying it to her wet face. 'I was aye losing mine.' Then, as her sobs subsided and she regarded her sister from a slight distance, she exclaimed suddenly, 'How bonnie you've got, Mary! There's a look about your face that makes me want never to take my eyes off you.'
'It's just the same old face, Nessie.'
'No! You were always bonnie, but now there's something seems to shine out of it like a light.'
'Never mind about me,' replied Mary tenderly. 'It's you I'm thinking of, dear. We'll need to see about putting some flesh on these thin arms of yours. You've been needing some one to look after you.'
'I have, indeed,' answered Nessie pathetically, looking down at her own unsubstantial form. 'I can't eat anything. We've had such bad food lately. It was all because of that that ' She threatened to break down again.
'Hush, pettie, hush don't cry again,' whispered Mary. 'Tell me some other time.'
'I can't wait to tell you,' cried Nessie hysterically, her words coming in a rush. 'My letter told you nothing. We've had a terrible woman in the house and she's run away with Matt to America. Father was nearly out of his head and he -does nothing but drink from mornin' till night, and oh! Mary! He's driving me on to study so much that it's just killing me. Don't let him do it, Mary will you? You'll save me, won't you, Mary?' and she held her hands out beseechingly towards her sister.
Mary stood quite still; the torrent of the other's speech had overwhelmed her. Then she said slowly, 'Is Father changed, Nessie? Is he not good to you now?'
'Changed!' whimpered Nessie. 'He's so changed you wouldn't know him. It frightens me to see him sometimes. When he's not had whiskey he's like a man walkin' in a dream. You wouldn't believe the change in everything' she continued with a rising voice and, seizing her sister's arm, she began to draw her towards the kitchen 'you wouldn't believe it unless you saw it. Look here! Come and see the sight of this room,' and she flung open the door widely as though to demonstrate visibly the extent of the alteration in the circumstances of her life.
Mary stood dumbly envisaging the frowsy room, then she looked it Nessie and said wonderingly:
'Does Father put up with this?'
'Put up with it!' cried the other; 'he doesn't even notice it, and he looks worse even than this room, with his clothes hanging off him, and his eyes sunk away down in his head. If I try to lay a finger on the place to clear it up he roars my head off and keeps shouting at me to get on with my work and threatens me in all manner of ways, simply scares me out of my wits.'
'Is it a’ bad as that, then?' murmured Mary, almost to herself.
'It's worse,' cried Nessie mournfully, looking up at her sister with wide eyes. 'Grandma does the best she can, but she's near helpless now. Nobody can manage him. You and me better go away somewhere quick before anything happens to us.' Her attitude seemed to entreat her sister to fly instantly with her from the ruins of their home. But Mary shook her head, and speaking firmly, cheerfully, said:
'We can't run away, dear. We'll do the best we can together. I'll soon have the place different for you,' and, advancing to the window, she threw it up and let a gust of the cool, sharp wind come rushing into the room. 'There, now; we'll let the breeze in for a little, while we have a walk in the back, then I'll come in and straighten things out.' She took off her hat and coat and, laying them on the sofa, turned again to Nessie, put her arm round the other's thin waist, and drew her out of the back door into the outer air.
'Oh, Mary!' cried Nessie ecstatically, pressing her side close against her sister as the two began to walk slowly up and down. 'It's wonderful to have you back. You're so strong, I've an awful faith in you. Surely things will go right now.' Then she added inconsequently, 'What's been happening to you? What have you been doing all this time?'
Mary held out her free hand for a moment.
'Just using these,' she said lightly; 'and hard work never killed anybody, so here I am.'
The younger girl looked with a shocked gaze at the rough calloused palm, seared by a deep white scar; and turning her eyes upwards remarked wonderingly:
'What gave you that big mark? Was it a cut ye got?'
A quick expression of pain flitted across Mary's face as she replied:
'That was it, Nessie; but it's all better now. I told you never to mind about your stupid old sister. It's wee you we're to think about.'
Nessie laughed happily, then stopped short in amazement.
'Would ye believe it!' she exclaimed, in an awestruck tone; 'that was me laughin' a thing I haven't done for months. Goodness! I could be downright 'happy if it wasn't for the thought of all the work for that old Bursary exam.' She shivered exaggeratedly. 'That's the worse thing of any.'
'Will you not get it?' asked Mary solicitously.
'Of course I will!' exclaimed the other, with a toss of her head. 'I mean to get it all right, just to show them all the way some of them have behaved to me at school is a disgrace. But it's Father. He goes on about it and worries me to death. I wish he would only leave me alone.' She shook her head and added, in an old-fashioned tone that might have been her mother's voice, 'My head's like to split the way he raves at me sometimes. He's got me away to a shadow.'
Mary looked commiseratingly at the fragile form and thin precocious face beside her and, squeezing her sister's puny arm reassuringly, she said:
'I'll soon get you all right, my girl. I know exactly what to do and I've a few tricks up my sleeve that might surprise you.'
Nessie turned, and using a favourite catchword of their childhood, remarked with an assumption or great simplicity:
'Is it honky-tonky tricks you've got up there, Mary?'
The sisters gazed at each other while the years fell away from them, then suddenly they smiled into each other's eyes and laughed aloud together, with a sound which echoed strangely in that desolate back garden.
