--to the right side. We could see her
eyes bright with a surprising tenderness and joy, bending over this
bundle of clothes. She held it as a woman holds her sucking child;
opening out her night-gown impatiently, and holding it close and
brooding over it and murmuring foolish little words, as over one whom
his mother comforteth, and who sucks and is satisfied. It was pitiful
and strange to see her wasted, dying look, keen and yet vague--her
immense love.

"Preserve me!" groaned James, giving way. And then she rocked back and
forward, as if to make it sleep, hushing it, and wasting on it her
infinite fondness. "Wae's me, doctor; I declare she's thinkin' it's
that bairn." "What bairn?" "The only bairn we ever had; our wee Mysie,
and she's in the Kingdom forty years and mair." It was plainly true;
the pain in the breast, telling its urgent story to a bewildered,
ruined brain, was misread and mistaken; it suggested to her the
uneasiness of a breast full of milk, and then the child; and so again
once more they were together, and she had her ain wee Mysie on her
bosom.

This was the close. She sank rapidly; the delirium left her; but, as
she whispered, she was "clean silly"; it was the lightening before the
final darkness. After having for some time lain still, her eyes shut,
she said, "James!" He came close to her, and, lifting up her calm,
clear, beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, turned to me kindly
but shortly, looked for Rab but could not see him, then turned to her
husband again, as if she would never leave off looking, shut her eyes,
and composed herself. She lay for some time breathing quick, and
passed away so gently that, when we thought she was gone, James, in
his old-fashioned way, held the mirror to her face. After a long
pause, one small spot of dimness was breathed out; it vanished away,
and never returned, leaving the blank, clear darkness without a stain.
"What is our life? It is even as a vapor, which appeareth for a little
time, and then vanisheth away."

Rab all this time had been full awake and motionless; he came forward
beside us; Ailie's hand, which James had held, was hanging down; it
was soaked with his tears; Rab licked it all over carefully, looked at
her, and returned to his place under the table.

James and I sat, I don't know how long, but for some time. Saying
nothing, he started up abruptly, and with some noise went to the
table, and, putting his right fore and middle fingers each