down
immediately, with a white face and tired, sleepless eyes.

"She's having the first sleep in three days," she said, "and the old
doctor thinks the worst is by. But ye'd best not disturb her. Let her
bide quiet now."

Dr. McMurtrie and I took turns by the bedside that day and night, but
she knew neither of us, lying, in her waking moments, with scarlet
cheeks and wide, delirious eyes, singing snatches of songs, weaving
meaningless words together, and crying over and over again, "It's of no
use--no use--no use," in a kind of eldritch sing-song which wrung my
heart.

"She's had some kind of a shock," Dr. McMurtrie said, "one that she'll
be some time getting over, I fear."

As to the cause of the trouble the whole house was as mystified as
myself.

"I know as little of the reason of her illness as you do yourselves."
Janet said, after she had narrated the doings at the inn. "On Tuesday,
a little after noon, she came to me saying that she'd been in such an
excited state, she was off alone to collect herself by a walk, and
while she was out she passed a girl who was putting some linen on the
bleach-green; Nancy spoke to her concerning some lace with which the
garments were trimmed, and as they talked Rab Burns passed them, with
four or five of his cronies, and the girl broke into a passion at sight
of him, shaking her fist after him and calling him foul names as he
went down the lane.

"At this, another girl, who was soon to be a mother, came weeping from
the house, and Nancy emptied her purse to them before they parted.

"When she came in," Janet went on, "her face was white and set, her
eyes seeing nothing, and when Rab Burns sent up his name to her that
night she said to the maid, 'Tell Mr. Burns that Miss Stair will not
see him!' and sat by the window, staring into the starlight, where I
found her at five the next morning with the fever upon her and her wits
gone gyte."

I have had much sorrow in my time, but the agony of suspense and
suspicion with which the next few days were filled pales every grief of
my life that went before this time. Was it possible, I asked God, that
my wee bit, wonderful lassie, my Little Flower, had bloomed to be
trodden under foot by a plowman of Ayr?

McMurtrie drove me from the house at times for rest of mind as well as
exercise, and one night, at the week's end, having walked farther than
usual, I entered an ale-house in the Cowgate for something to quench my
thirst. There