to him
farewell. Soon as he was gone, all her courage had died. Alone, she
feared death, and wept to think how hard it was for one so young thus
miserably to die. He came--and her whole being was changed. Folded up in
both the plaids, she felt resigned. "Oh! kiss me--kiss me, Ranald--for
your love--great as it is--is not as my love. You must never forget me,
Ranald--when your poor Flora is dead."

Religion with these two young creatures was as clear as the light of the
Sabbath-day--and their belief in heaven just the same as in earth. The
will of God they thought of just as they thought of their parents'
will--and the same was their loving obedience to its decrees. If she was
to die--supported now by the presence of her brother--Flora was utterly
resigned; if she were to live, her heart imaged to itself the very forms
of her grateful worship. But all at once she closed her eyes--ceased
breathing--and, as the tempest howled and rumbled in the gloom that fell
around them like blindness, Ranald almost sank down, thinking that she
was dead.

"Wretched sinner that I am!--my wicked madness brought her here to die
of cold!" And he smote his breast--and tore his hair--and feared to look
up, lest the angry eye of God were looking on him through the storm.

All at once, without speaking a word, Ranald lifted Flora in his arms,
and walked away up the glen--here almost narrowed into a pass.
Distraction gave him supernatural strength, and her weight seemed that
of a child. Some walls of what had once been a house, he had suddenly
remembered, were but a short way off--whether or not they had any roof,
he had forgotten; but the thought even of such shelter seemed a thought
of salvation. There it was--a snow-drift at the opening that had once
been a door--snow up the holes once windows--the wood of the roof had
been carried off for fuel, and the snow-flakes were falling in, as if
they would soon fill up the inside of the ruin. The snow in front was
all trampled as if by sheep; and carrying in his burden under the low
lintel, he saw the place was filled with a flock that had foreknown the
hurricane, and that all huddled together looked on him as on the
shepherd come to see how they were faring in the storm.

And a young shepherd he was, with a lamb apparently dying in his arms.
All colour--all motion--all breath seemed to be gone--and yet something
convinced his heart that she was yet alive. The ruined hut was roofless,
but across a