Kirsteen now. And who could be harsh to Jeanie?--not even her father, though she was but a girl! While the elder sister thought thus, the younger stirred a little and turned towards her. The daylight was still grey but clear enough to make the sweet little countenance visible. Jeanie’s yellow hair was all decently smoothed under her nightcap according to the decorous fashion of the time. And the little frilled cap surrounding her face made her look something between an infant and a nun, unspeakably childlike, innocent and pure to her sister’s admiring eyes. But Jeanie’s face grew agitated and unquiet as the faint light stole over it and the moment of waking approached. She put out her hands and seemed to clutch at something in the air--“I will not go--I will not go--I will go with none but Kirsteen,” she cried in her sleep. Then, her voice growing thick and hurried, “No--no--I’ll not do it--I’ll never go--no, no, no.” Jeanie struggled in her dream as if she were being dragged away struggling with something stronger than herself. Suddenly she woke, and sat up in her bed with a dazed look round her, and trouble in every line of her puckered eyelids. “What is it, Jeanie?” She turned round and saw Kirsteen, with a sudden lightening of her countenance, as if the sun had risen, “Oh, Kirsteen, if you’re there! nobody will meddle with me if you’re there!” “What is it--what is it, Jeanie?” Jeanie looked round again as if still unassured. “I was only dreaming,” she said. And there was little time for further inquiries since Marg’ret just then came into the room. She was very tender to Jeanie but anxious to get her roused and dressed and sent down stairs, “to give the laddies, poor things, their breakfast.” Marg’ret had restrained herself with a great effort that neither might be disturbed before the time after such a broken night. She herself had not been in bed at all, and felt it quite natural that it should be so, her fatigue going off with the coming of the morning, and a still excitement filling all her veins. The loss of the mistress was perhaps more to Marg’ret than to any one in the house; but Kirsteen too was more to her than any other. She would have a long time to indulge her grief, but not long to hear the story and enter into all the feelings of her child. She had restrained with what was a true self-sacrifice her eagerness and loving curiosity. When she sat down now by Kirsteen’s bedside it was with a sigh of satisfaction and relief. “And now, my own bairn, the pride of my heart!” Marg’ret said.