t I need not
tell you _that_. Hamish, if it had not been for you, I think my mother
must have died. What is Dan, or what am I, in comparison to you?
Hamish, you must take heart and be strong, for all our sakes."

They were sitting on the doorstep by this time, and Shenac laid her head
on her brother's shoulder as she spoke.

"I know I am all wrong, Shenac. I know I ought to be content as I am,"
said Hamish at last, but he could say no more.

Shenac's heart filled with love and pity unspeakable. She would have
given him her health and strength, and would have taken up his burden of
weakness and deformity to bear them henceforth for his sake. But she
did not tell him so; where would have been the good? She sat quite
still, only stroking his hand now and then, till he spoke again.

"Perhaps I am wrong to speak to you about it, Shenac, but I seem to
myself to be quite changed; I seem to have nothing to look forward to.
If it had been me who was taken instead of Lewis."

"Hamish," said Shenac gravely, "it is not saying it to me that is wrong,
but thinking it. And why should you have nothing to look forward to?
We are young. A year seems a long time; but it will pass, and when
Allister comes home, and we are prosperous again, it will be with you as
it would have been if my father had lived. You will get to your books
again, and learn and grow a wise man; and what will it signify that you
are little and lame, when you have all the honour that wisdom wins? Of
course all these sad changes are worse for you than for the rest. _We_
will only have to work a little harder, but your life is quite changed;
and, Hamish, it will only be for a little while, till Allister comes
home."

"But, Shenac," said Hamish eagerly, "you are not to think I mind _that_
most; I am not so bad as that. If I were strong--if I were like the
rest--I would like nothing so well as to labour always for my mother and
you all; but I can do little."

"Yes, I know," said Shenac; "but Dan can do that, and so can I But your
work will be different--far higher and nobler than ours. Only you must
not be impatient because you are hindered a little just now. Hamish,
bhodach, what is a year out of a whole lifetime? Never fear, you will
find your true work in time."

"Bhodach" is "old man" in the language in which these children were
speaking. But on Shenac's lips it meant every sweet and tender name;
and, listening to her, Hamish forgot his troubl