"Should have been," said Anne; "but I do not speak of what should be, Mrs. Catherine. Why this shrinking, feeble spirit was conjoined with such a lot, who can tell? It had a strange, feverish, hysteric strength, too. When he battled through yon dark waves to save the perishing seamen, you would not have said that Patrick Lillie was a coward." There was a pause. Mrs. Catherine's manner softened. Anne took advantage of it to repeat to her Christian Lillie's story. The stern, stately old lady was moved to very tears. "And so at last justice is done," she said. "Anne, it is meet that this worn woman, after her travail, should have light in her evening-time. If she will come with you, bid her come to my house. The like of her would do honor to any dwelling, were it a king's. And she left him at his grave's brink, whenever he was at rest, to render what was just to the banished man? She did well. It behoves that all who known this history should render reverence. I say she did well." There was again a momentary pause. "And where is he?" asked Mrs. Catherine. "Where, and in what condition is Norman Rutherford?" "I have never asked yet," said Anne. "I was anxious to soothe her; she has been so worn out with watching and grief. I will ask her now, when all excitement is over, and she has only to bear her gentle sorrow for Patrick's death." "Ay--ay," said Mrs. Catherine, slowly; "ay--and yet you do not know, Gowan, the terrible, dreary calm that is left by that shadow of death. I speak of the death that carries home a godly, honorable, righteous man, whose life was a joy and a blessing.--This is a grief sorer than mine. I bow my head to this tribulation. I cannot fathom all the depths of its bitterness; it is greater than mine." And with her large gray eyelid swelling full, Mrs. Catherine Douglas bowed her stately head. Yes! the solitary, desolate, dumb might of anguish with which her strong spirit quivered, when she left all that remained of Sholto Douglas sleeping peacefully in his calm island grave, overwhelming as it was, became a gentle sorrow in presence of the life of wakeful agony which Christian Lillie had borne silently within the desolate walls of Schole. Mrs. Catherine began to speak of the possibility of remaining for the night. It was a very strange idea for her, who had not slept under a strange roof for more than thirty years. Since Patrick's death, Anne had passed both night and day at Schole, and the pretty little clean bed-room behind was unoccupied. Miss Crankie herself was called in to be consulted on the subject. Miss Crankie had scarcely entered the room, when there was a rush in the passage. The door flew violently open, and Mrs. Yammer, her head bound up with mighty rolls of flannel, and a newspaper trembling in her eager hand, stood before them. "Eh, Johann!--Eh, Miss Ross!" she could articulate no more.