t morning, and
taking me off for a long ride before dinner, contrary to all established
customs.

Aleck grew no better all through the day, and the next night he was
worse.

On Saturday morning, two other doctors came to consult with Dr. Wilson;
and I could read in the grave faces around me that the worst was
apprehended. But I saw scarcely anything of my father or mother, or even
nurse, so that all tidings from the sick-room came through remote
channels--servants who had taken something up to the room, or Mr.
Glengelly, who had seen one of the doctors for a moment, and whom I
suspected of keeping back the full gravity of the verdict.

If I could only have seen my father or mother alone quietly, without
their being in a hurry, I thought I should have told them everything;
but no opportunity presented itself, and another weary day wore by
without any unburdening of my conscience, or relief to my gloomy
anticipations.

Sunday morning! Such a happy day generally! for my parents contrived to
make it really, and not nominally, the best of all the seven; but now,
how dreary was the awakening to a Sunday which I expected to be only the
melancholy repetition of the preceding days, if not far sadder!

The weather had turned chilly, and the servants, to make things look a
little brighter, made this the excuse for a fire in the dining-room, by
which I crouched down on the rug, after breakfast, with a Sunday
story-book in my hand, wondering whether I should go to church, or what
would happen in a state of things so different from what was usual; and
why it was I was told I need not prepare my repetition lesson from the
Bible, according to custom. By-and-by my father came in and told me to
get ready to go with him to church; he thought he might safely leave
Aleck for a little while, and would like to have me walk with him.

We had not far to go, for the church stood but a quarter of a mile from
our house, and there was a direct pathway to it through the woods. I
thought perhaps I should muster courage to open my heart to my father as
we went along. But first we met one person and then another, anxious to
know the last report from the sick-room, so that we had no time alone,
and I had to reserve my confession until we should come home after
church. Aleck was to be prayed for in church, my father told me; and he
added that I was to think of Uncle and Aunt Gordon too, in the Litany,
for it would be a sore trouble to them to have