what one dare not say; for words, once spoken, cannot be wiped out with
a sponge--and more's the pity!"

Christina had also reached a crisis in her own life,--a crisis so
important, that it quite excused the apparent readiness with which she
dismissed Sophy's strange confidence. For the feeling between Jamie
Logan and herself had grown to expression, and she was well aware that
what had hitherto been in a large measure secret and private to
themselves, had this night become evident to others. And she was not
sure how Jamie would be received. Andrew had saved his life in a sudden
storm, and brought him to the Binnie cottage until he should be able to
return to his own place. But instead of going away, he had hired his
time for the herring season to a Pittendurie fisherman; and every spare
hour had found him at the Binnie cottage, wooing the handsome
Christina.

The village was not unanimously in his favour. No one could say
anything against Jamie Logan; but he was a stranger, and that fact was
hard to get over. A man must serve a very strict and long probation to
be adopted into a Fife fishing community, and it was considered "very
upsetting" for an unkent man to be looking up to the like of Christina
Binnie,--a lass whose forbears had been in Pittendurie beyond the
memory or the tradition of its inhabitants.

Janet also was not quite satisfied; and Christina knew this. She
expected her daughter to marry a fisherman, but at least one who owned
his share in a good boat, and who had a house to take a wife to. This
strange lad was handsome and good-tempered; but, as she reflected, and
not unfrequently said, "good looks and a laugh and a song, are not
things to lippen to for housekeeping." So, on the whole, Christina had