The most powerful rays that fall from the sun are neither those of colour nor those of heat .-- Annie sat by Tibbie's side--the side away from the sun.

If the East and the West might take human shape--come forth in their Oreads from their hill-tops, and meet half-way between--there they were seated side by side: Tibbie, old, scarred, blind Tibbie, was of the west and the sunset, the centre of a blood-red splendour; cold, gentle Annie, with her dark hair, blue eyes, and the sad wisdom of her pale face, was of the sun-deserted east, between whose gray clouds, faintly smiling back the rosiness of the sun's triumphal death, two or three cold stars were waiting to glimmer.
Tibbie had come out to bask a little, and, in the dark warmth of the material sun, to worship that Sun whose light she saw in the hidden world of her heart, and who is the Sun of all the worlds; to breathe the air, which, through her prison-bars, spoke of freedom; to give herself room to long for the hour when the loving Father would take her out of the husk which infolded her, and say to her: "_See, my child_." With the rest of the travailing creation, she was groaning in hopeful pain--not in the pain of the mother, but in the pain of the child, soon to be forgotten in the following rest.
If my younger readers want to follow Kate and Alec home, they will take it for a symptom of the chill approach of "unlovely age," that I say to them: 'We will go home with Tibbie and Annie, and hear what they say.

I like better to tell you about ugly blind old Tibbie than about beautiful young Kate .-- But you shall have your turn.

Do not think that we old people do not care for what you care for.

We want more than you want--a something without which what you like best cannot last.' "What did the coch stop for, Annie, lass ?" asked Tibbie, as soon as the mail had driven on.
"It's a lady gaein to Mistress Forbes's at Howglen." "Hoo ken ye that ?" "'Cause Alec Forbes rade oot to meet her, and syne took her hame i' the gig." "Ay! ay! I thought I heard mair nor the ordinar nummer o' horse-feet as the coch cam' up.