Margaret now felt comparatively well, and was eager to resume her studies. She was indulged so far as to be permitted to accompany her father three times to the city, where she took lessons in French, music, and dancing. To the Christmas holidays she looked forward as a season of delight; she had prepared a drama of six acts for the domestic entertainment, and the back parlor was to be fitted up for a theatre, her little brothers being her fellow-laborers. But her anticipations were disappointed. Two of her brothers were taken ill; and one of them, a beautiful boy of nine, never recovered. "This," says her mother, "was Margaret's first acquaintance with death. She saw her sweet little play-fellow reclining upon my bosom during his last agonies; she witnessed the bright glow which flashed upon his long-faded cheek; she beheld the unearthly light of his beautiful eye, as he pressed his dying lips to mine, and exclaimed, 'Mother, dear mother, the last hour has come!' It was indeed an hour of anguish. Its effect upon her youthful mind was as lasting as her life. The sudden change from life and animation to the still unconsciousness of death, for a time almost paralyzed her. The first thing that aroused her to a sense of what was going on about her, was the thought of my bereavement, and a conviction that it was her province to console me." But Mrs. Davidson soon presents a sadder picture: "My own weak frame was unable longer to sustain the effects of long watching and deep grief. I had not only lost my lovely boy, but I felt a strong conviction that I must soon resign my Margaret. Although she still persisted in the belief that she was well, the irritating cough, the hectic flush, the hurried beating of the heart, and the drenching night perspirations, confirmed me in this belief, and I sank under this accumulated weight of affliction. For three weeks I hovered on the borders of the grave, and, when I arose from this bed of pain, it was to witness the rupture of a blood-vessel in her lungs, caused by exertions to suppress a cough. I was compelled to conceal every appearance of alarm, lest agitation of her mind should produce fatal consequences. As I seated myself by her, she raised her speaking eyes to mine with a mournful, inquiring gaze, and, as she read the anguish which I could not conceal, she turned away with a look of despair." There no longer remained room for hope, and all that remained to be done was to smooth the pathway to the grave.