“Ay, so he did,” said her brother; “he has sense enough for half-a-dozen. I wish I had minded him more. May, you needn’t be so frightened. If I am going, as you think--well, well! there would be nothing to be so dismal about. It has to be one time or another. If it were not for all those tangled threads, and things done that shouldn’t have been done, and left undone that should have been done, like the Prayer-book. I suppose it’s the common way. Good and bad would not say it every Sunday, if it were not the common way.” “It is the very commonest way of all, Tom.” “I thought so. Then I’ll be forgiven, too, like the rest, if that’s all. The old doctor at Comlie would be harder on a fellow than the Prayer-book is. You’re great for the Kirk, May, and I suppose, as we’re Scotch, you’re right; but if I were a religious fellow, which I’m not, I would go in for the Prayer-book, mind you; it’s kinder; it asks fewer questions. We have done what we ought not to have done; we have left undone--If I had time just now, and felt up to it, I would like to tell you something, May.” “Tell me, Tom,” she said, eagerly. “We are quiet now; there’s nobody here.” “Presently,” he said; and then fell into a musing state, from which she could not rouse him. Now and then he would brighten up, and call her attention to a fly on the ceiling; to the pattern of the paper on the walls; to an old picture over the mantel-piece; smiling and commenting upon them. “The walls should not be papered in a room where a man is to lie ill,” he said. “If you knew what strange figures they turn into. There’s an old witch in that corner with a red nose and a red cap; don’t you see her? Last night she kept sailing about the room on a broomstick, or something; and, by Jove! there is that unhappy fly astride on her red nose!” At this idea he laughed feebly, yet loudly. How that laugh echoed down into May’s heart! He would not allow anything more serious to be spoken of. “I am too tired to be sensible,” he said. “Don’t disturb my fly, May. He’s numb, poor fellow, after the Winter. I only hope if the witch takes to riding about again, to-night, she won’t disturb him. I don’t see her broomstick to-day. Trifling talk, eh? To be sure, it’s nonsense; but if a man may not indulge in a little nonsense when he’s laid by the heels like this, and has a nice sister smiling at him--” Here the poor fellow put out his hand to her, which Marjory took within her own, doing her best to keep up the smile which pleased him, though there were few exertions of strength which would not have been easier to her at the moment. “I like nonsense,” she said, softly. “But, Tom, somebody will come in presently and disturb us. Tell me, dear, first what you wanted to say.”