"And your little lad is my lad fra this hour, dearie!" The dying lips parted, and Mysie knew they had spoken a blessing for her.
Nothing was found upon the woman that could identify her, nothing except a cruel letter, which evidently came from the girl's father; but even in this there was neither date nor locality named.

It had no term of endearment to commence with, and was signed simply, "John Dunbar." Two things were, however, proven by it: that the woman's given name was Bessie, and that by her marriage she had cut herself off from her home and her father's affection.
So she was laid by stranger hands within that doorless house in the which God sometimes mercifully puts his weary ones to sleep.

Mysie took the child to her heart at once, and Andrew was not long able to resist the little lad's beauty and winning ways.

The neighbors began to call him "wee Andrew;" and the old man grew to love his namesake with a strangely tender affection.
Sometimes there was indeed a bitter feeling in Mysie's heart, as she saw how gentle he was with this child and remembered how stern and strict he had been with their own lad.

She did not understand that the one was in reality the result of the other, the acknowledgement of his fault, and the touching effort to atone, in some way, for it.
One night, when wee Andrew was about seven years old, this wrong struck her in a manner peculiarly painful.