“And when did it happen, said you?” asked one of them, whose head moved with an incessant capricious motion from palsy. “About two o’clock this morning,” answered the other, who leaned on a stick, almost bent double with rheumatism. “I saw their next-door neighbour this morning, and he had seen Jamie, who goes home of a Saturday night, you know; but William being a Seceder, nobody’s been to tell the minister, and I’m just waiting to let him know; for she was a great favourite of his, and he’s been to see her often. They’re much to be pitied--poor people! Nobody thought it would come so sudden like. When I saw her mother last, there was no such notion in her head.” Before I could ask of whom they were talking, my father came up the aisle from the vestry, and stopped to speak to the old women. “Elsie Duff’s gone, poor thing!” said the rheumatic one. I grew stupid. What followed I have forgotten. A sound was in my ears, and my body seemed to believe it, though my soul could not comprehend it. When I came to myself I was alone in the church. They had gone away without seeing me. I was standing beside the monument, leaning on the carved Crusader. The sun was again shining, and the old church was full of light. But the sunshine had changed to me, and I felt very mournful. I should see the sweet face, hear the lovely voice, no more in this world. I endeavoured to realize the thought, but could not, and I left the church hardly conscious of anything but a dull sense of loss. I found my father very grave. He spoke tenderly of Elsie; but he did not know how I had loved her, and I could not make much response. I think, too, that he said less than he otherwise would, from the fear of calling back to my mind too vivid a memory of how ill I had once behaved to her. It was, indeed, my first thought the moment he uttered her name, but it soon passed, for much had come between. In the evening I went up to the farm to look for Turkey, who had not been at church morning or afternoon. He was the only one I could talk to about Elsie. I found him in one of the cow-houses, bedding the cows. His back was towards me when I entered. “Turkey,” I said. He looked round with a slow mechanical motion, as if with a conscious effort of the will. His face was so white, and wore such a look of loss, that it almost terrified me like the presence of something awful. I stood speechless. He looked at me for a moment, and then came slowly up to me, and laid his hand on my shoulder. “Ranald,” he said, “we were to have been married next year.” Before the grief of the man, mighty in its silence, my whole being was humbled. I knew my love was not so great as his. It grew in my eyes a pale and feeble thing; and I felt worthless in the presence of her dead, whom alive I had loved with peaceful gladness. Elsie belonged to Turkey, and he had lost her, and his heart was breaking. I threw my arms round him, and wept for him, not for myself. It was thus I ceased to be a boy.