The table, formerly so hospitably spread for us, was gone; the meal-chest, the children’s bed, the comfortable settle, each in its turn had been parted with for food; the inner door was open, and there were the bairns, no longer fresh, rosy, full of life and vigour; they had ceased to attend the school; they had ceased to climb the overhanging rocks, and splash and dabble, like so many wild birds, in the stream that foamed beneath the ledge on which the cottage stood. Poor children! they were all lying huddled together on a mattress, with a dirty blanket over it: their old pet the grey cat curled up among the group. They were scarcely covered, for the one scanty, tattered garment which did not reach the knees, showed the deep poverty that had fallen on the parents. They were anxiously waiting for the hour when the little portion of milk which the wretched half, no, not half-fed cow, still yielded, was to be divided among them. It was now three days since they had tasted any other nourishment, and M’Kenzie and his wife began to think it would be better to sell or kill their cow, than thus to see their little ones pining away beneath the united pangs of cold and hunger. But there had been no fire upon the hearth that day; for the few peats that remained were husbanded to dress the meals that they were daily hoping might, through some providential channel, come to them. And the children awoke at night, crying with cold; and one of them sobbed, and said,—“Collie is always warm. Oh! mither, let me gang sleep wi’ Collie; for Robin and Moggie are like the frost to me.” The father spoke not! but he went to the shed and led in the poor miserable-looking cow, that staggered from weakness as it stepped over the stones at the door. He brought it to the side of the children’s bed, and, when it lay down they stretched themselves upon it, and the gentle creature, that in happier days had been caressed and often wreathed with garlands of the broom and heather by them, turned its head and fixed its large mild eye upon them, as though sensible of their sufferings, and pleased to minister to them, and for some hours suffering was forgotten in sleep.