"A week before his bridal day, Sholto came home from Edinburgh a stricken man. I read it in the doctor's face that came to see him first. I saw it in the blood they took from him, till he was worn and wasted to a shadow. The burning heat of his inflammation was on him the day that should have been his bridal day--and when he rose from that bed it was only to sink into the terrible beauty of decline--with all its dreams of health, and wild hopes, and sick delusions. Be thankful, bairn, that no such weird is laid upon you. "I saw him dying before me day by day. Into my heart there had never mortal man entered but Sholto, my one brother; and in his prime of youth, with hopes thick about his brow like the clusters of his hair, was the Lord parting him from me. I could not hope--when Isabel leant upon his chair, and looked into his face--his cheek with its bright color, and his glorious e'en--and smiled and rejoiced, and said he would be well, I turned from her, my heart within me sick unto death. I knew he was a doomed man--I saw there was no hope. "They said at last that the air of some sunnier country would heal him of his trouble, and I prepared for the journey; anxiously I pleaded with Isabel to go with us, that he might have the comfort of her presence. Her kindred would not let her--she thought it not needful herself, neither did he: they would meet again, he said, so soon in health and gladness. I turned away from him--my heart was bursting. I kent they would never meet again--I kent that I took him away to die. "Alison, I saw the parting of the two. I saw the sick hope in Isabel Balfour's face, and the wan courage in Sholto's--their hearts misgave them at that moment. There is a shadow of fear upon all partings, and it was deepened upon theirs. As for me, my sky could not well be darker--it was not fear with me, but a deadly knowledge. I kent they would never meet again. "And so I went away with him--guarding the young man that had been so strong and healthful, from every blast of wind, as ye would guard a sick bairn. I went with him to Italy--to France--syne when he got no stronger--I took him away to that sunny island in the sea, where so many are sent to die. His doom was upon him--the light was in his eye more glorious than ever, the hectic was burning on his cheek. What was the soft air and the beautiful days, in comparison with the might of death. He died. I saw him laid in the cold earth of a foreign country, far away from the grave of his fathers, and turned in my desolation to come back to my own country, my lane. "Alison! you do not ken the blackness of darkness, the shadow of that terrible wing of death. Think of it--think of my desolate journey--think of my first parting with my one brother. Could ye have borne a woe like that?"