Robert Campbell, the only other man present, raised his voice, and made himself heard. “Jeanie will never want,” he said; “here’s her brother come back, no very much of a man, but still with heart enough in him to keep her from wanting. Willie’s but a roving lad, but the very rovingness of him is good for this, that he’ll not marry; and Jeanie will have a support, till she gets a man, which is aye on the cards for such a bonnie lass.” This was said with more than one meaning. Edgar saw Margaret’s eyelashes flutter on her cheek, and she moved a little uneasily, as though unable to restrain all evidence of a painful emotion. Just at this moment, however, a shadow darkened the window. Margaret, more keenly on the watch than anyone, lifted her eyes suddenly, and, rising to her feet, uttered a low cry. A young man in sailor’s dress came into the room, with a somewhat noisy greeting. “What, all of you here! What luck!” he cried. “But where’s granny?” He had to be hushed into silence, and to have all the circumstances explained to him; while Jeanie MacColl, half-reluctant to go, was sent upstairs to call her cousin and namesake, and to take her place as nurse for the moment. Edgar called her back softly, and offered himself for this duty. He cast a glance at the returned prodigal as he left the room, the brother for whom Jeanie had taken him, and whom everybody had acknowledged his great likeness to. Edgar looked at him with mingled amusement and curiosity, to see what he himself must look like. Perhaps Willie had not improved during his adventurous cruise. Edgar did not think much of himself as reflected in his image; and how glad he was to escape from his uncle and his aunt, and their family talk, to the stillness and loftier atmosphere of the death-chamber upstairs! CHAPTER XXI. The End of a Drama. Mrs. Murray lived two days longer. They were weary days to Edgar. It seems hard to grudge another hour, another moment to the dying, but how hard are those last lingerings, when hope is over, when all work is suspended, and a whole little world visibly standing still, till the lingerer can make up his mind to go! The sufferer herself was too human, too deeply experienced in life, not to feel the heavy interval as much as they did. “I’m grieved, grieved,” she said, with that emphatic repetition which the Scotch peasant uses in common with all naturally eloquent races, “to keep you waiting, bairns.” Sometimes she said this with a wistful smile, as claiming their indulgence; sometimes with a pang of consciousness that they were as weary as she was. She had kissed and blessed her prodigal returned, and owned to herself with a groan, which was, however, breathed into her own breast, and of which no one was the wiser, that Willie, too, was “no more than common folk.”