n for peety a' wad hae flung up the place.

"Ye never cud tell when he wud come in, or when he wud gae oot, or what
he wud be wantin' next. A' the waufies (disreputable people) in the
countryside come here, and the best in the hoose is no gude eneuch for
them. He's been an awfu' handfu' tae me, an' noo a' coont him clean
dottle (silly). But we maun juist bear oor burdens," concluded Barbara
piously, and she proposed to close the door.

"Your master will not want a nurse a minute longer; show me his room at
once"; and Kate was so commanding that Barbara's courage began to fail.

"Wha may ye be," raising her voice to rally her heart, "'at wud take
chairge o' a strainger in his ain hoose an' no sae muckle as ask leave?"

"I am Miss Carnegie, of Tochty Lodge; will you stand out of my way?"
and Kate swept past Barbara and went upstairs.

"Weel, a' declare," as soon as she had recovered, "of a' the impudent
hizzies"; but Barbara did not say this in Kate's hearing.

Kate had seen various curious hospitals in her day, and had nursed many
sick men--like the brave girl she was--but the Rabbi's room was
something quite new. His favourite books had been gathering there for
years, and now lined two walls and overhung the bed after a very
perilous fashion and had dispossessed the looking-glass--which had
become a nomad and was at present resting insecurely on John Owen--and
stood in banks round the bed. During his few days of illness the Rabbi
had accumulated so many volumes round him that he lay in a kind of
tunnel, arched over, as it were, with literature. He had been reading
Calvin's _Commentary on the Psalms_, in Latin, and it still lay open at
the 88th, the saddest of all songs in the Psalter; but as he grew
weaker the heavy folio had slid forward, and he seemed to be feeling
for it. Although Kate spoke to him by name, he did not know any one
was in the room. "Lord, why castest Thou off my soul? . . . I suffer
Thy terror, I am distracted . . . fierce wrath goeth over me . . .
lover and friend hast Thou put far from me . . . friend far from me."

His head fell on his breast, his breath was short and rapid, and he
coughed every few seconds.

"My friend far from me. . . ."

At the sorrow in his voice and the thing which he said the tears came
to Kate's eyes, and she went forward and spoke to him very gently. "Do
you know me, Dr. Saunderson--Miss Carnegie?"

"Not Saunderson . . . Magor Missabib."

"Rabbi, Rabb