wall shone in the
firelight. Then she went softly out and closed the door behind her.

The girl sat still on the high dresser, with her head leaning back on
the window ledge, watching the shadows made by the firelight, and
thinking her own pleasant thoughts the while. As the door closed, a
murmur of wonder escaped her, that "Janet had'na sent her to her bed."

"It's quite time I dare say," she added, in a little, "and I'm tired,
too, with my long walk to the glen. I'll go whenever papa comes down."

She listened for a minute. Then her thoughts went away to other
things--to her father, who had been away all day; to her mother, who was
not quite well to-night, and had gone up-stairs, contrary to her usual
custom, before her father came home. Then she thought of other things--
of the book she had been reading, a story of one who had dared and done
much in a righteous cause--and then she gradually lost sight of the tale
and fell into fanciful musings about her own future, and to the building
of pleasant castles, in which she and they whom she loved were to dwell.
Sitting in the firelight, with eyes and lips that smiled, the pleasant
fancies came and went. Not a shadow crossed her brow. Not a fear came
to dim the light by which she gazed into the future that she planned.
So she sat till her dream was dreamed out, and then, with a sigh, in
which there was no echo of care or pain, she woke to the present, and
turned to her book again.

"I might see by the fire," she said, and in a minute she was seated on
the floor, her head leaning on her hands, and her eye fastened on the
open page.

"Miss Graeme," said Janet, softly coming in with a child in her arms,
"your mamma's no' weel, and here's wee Rosie wakened, and wantin' her.
You'll need to take her, for I maun awa'."

The book fell from the girl's hand, as she started up with a frightened
face.

"What ails mamma, Janet? Is she very ill?"

"What should ail her but the one thing?" said Janet, impatiently.
"She'll be better the morn I hae nae doubt."

Graeme made no attempt to take the child, who held out her hands toward
her.

"I must go to her, Janet."

"Indeed, Miss Graeme, you'll do nothing o' the kind. Mrs Burns is with
her, and the doctor, and it's little good you could do her just now.
Bide still where you are, and take care o' wee Rosie, and hearken if you
hear ony o' the ither bairns, for none o' you can see your mamma the
night."

Graeme took he