"O mother," cried Janet, "there's a curse on us all! I would work my fingers raw for ye if I could, but I canna," she screamed, "I canna, I canna! My lungs are bye wi't. On Tuesday in Skeighan the doctor telled me I would soon be deid; he didna say't, but fine I saw what he was hinting. He advised me to gang to Ventnor in the Isle o' Wight," she added wanly; "as if I could gang to the Isle of Wight. I cam hame trembling, and wanted to tell ye; but when I cam in ye were ta'en up wi' John, and, 'O lassie,' said you, 'dinna bother me wi' your complaints enow.' I was hurt at that, and 'Well, well,' I thocht, 'if she doesna want to hear, I'll no tell her.' I was huffed at ye. And then my faither came in, and ye ken what happened. I hadna the heart to speak o't after that; I didna seem to care. I ken what it is to nurse daith in my breist wi' pride, too, mother," she went on. "Ye never cared verra much for me; it was John was your favourite. I used to be angry because you neglected my illness, and I never telled you how heavily I hoasted blood. 'She'll be sorry for this when I'm deid,' I used to think; and I hoped you would be. I had a kind of pride in saying nothing. But, O mother, I didna ken _you_ were just the same; I didna ken _you_ were just the same." She looked. Her mother was not listening. Suddenly Mrs. Gourlay screamed with wild laughter, and, laughing, eyed with mirthless merriment the look of horror with which Janet was regarding her. "Ha, ha, ha!" she screamed, "it's to be a clean sweep o' the Gourlays! Ha, ha, ha! it's to be a clean sweep o' the Gourlays!" There is nothing uglier in life than a woman's cruel laugh; but Mrs. Gourlay's laugh was more than cruel, it was demoniac--the skirl of a human being carried by misery beyond the confines of humanity. Janet stared at her in speechless fear. "Mother," she whispered at last, "what are we to do?" "There's twa-thirds of the poison left," said Mrs. Gourlay. "Mother!" cried Janet. "Gourlay's dochter may gang on the parish if she likes, but his wife never will. _You_ may hoast yourself to death in a garret in the poorhouse, but _I_'ll follow my boy." The sudden picture of her own lonely death as a pauper among strangers, when her mother and brother should be gone, was so appalling to Janet that to die with her mother seemed pleasanter. She could not bear to be left alone. "Mother," she cried in a frenzy, "I'll keep ye company!" "Let us read a chapter," said Mrs. Gourlay. She took down the big Bible, and "the thirteent' chapter o' First Corinthians," she announced in a loud voice, as if giving it out from the pulpit, "the thirteent'--o' the First Corinthians:"-- "_'Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal._