nervousness and misery, and looked at herself in Marg’ret’s little looking-glass--a wild, pale, red-eyed, dishevelled creature, so entirely unlike Mrs. Doctor Dewar. Oh, what should she do? The terrors of the cowardly and ignoble are perhaps more dreadful than anything that can be experienced by minds more highly endowed. No barrier of reason or possibility appeared to Anne to limit the horrors that might happen to her. She might be murdered there for anything she knew. And it was with the greatest difficulty that she was got up stairs. She was afraid of everything, afraid of the creak of the stairs, of her father’s door, lest it should open upon her suddenly, and of her mother’s death-bed. Anne was terribly afraid of death--always with a personal terror lest she should see or hear something ghastly and dreadful. “Oh, Kirsteen, it will just kill me,” she said. “What will kill ye?” cried Kirsteen in indignation. “It is just a sight for the angels.” But Anne was beyond the verge of such consolation. She dropped down a helpless heap of clothes and tears by her mother’s bedside, scarcely venturing a glance at the blanched and shrunken white image that lay in her mother’s bed. And by this time the dying woman had wandered beyond the consciousness of what was about her. She smiled and opened her eyes for a moment when she was appealed to, but what she said had no connection with the circumstances about her. “Mother, it is Anne--Mother, Anne’s here. Anne’s come to see ye--Mother, have ye not a word for Anne?” “Anne, is that her name? No, my bonny dear, but Alison after my mother. She’s the biggest of the three, and look at her gold hair like Jeanie’s.” The white face was illuminated with the most beautiful smile--the half-opened eyes had a dazzled look of happiness. She opened them faintly with the one recognition that remained in them. “Eh, Kirsteen, but it’s bonny, bonny!” “Mother,” cried Kirsteen with her arm under the pillow gently moving and changing the position of the sufferer, as she turned from one side to another. “Mother! one word for poor Anne!” Her mother only turned once more those dazzled faint eyes with the last spark of mortal consciousness in them to Kirsteen and smiled. She had gone out into the green pastures and by the quiet waters, and recognized earthly calls no more. “Oh, Kirsteen, never mind, oh, never mind. Now that I’ve seen her I’ll just creep away.” “Come here,” said Kirsteen full of pity, “and ye can give her a kiss before ye go.” Anne dragged herself up, trembling and tottering. She would rather have dared the dark road than touch that white face. But what her sister ordained she had to do. She bent over the bedside with terror to give the required kiss.