‘Oh, let me be!’ sobbed Isabel, ‘let me be;’ and sighing, Jean left her in her own especial sanctuary, by the warm light of the kitchen fire. Unawares her eyes closed, her hands, which had been strained together with a painful pressure, unclasped, her head fell softly back upon the blue and white covering of the high-backed chair. Jean was so moved by the sight when she returned into the kitchen, coming and going at her work, that she turned even little Mary, just coming home from school, out of the darkling place. ‘Can ye no see that Isabel’s sleeping?’ she said sharply to her own flesh and blood. ‘But, oh, what makes her sleep in the day?’ said Mary, following into the parlour with a frightened face, ‘Is she to die too like Margaret?’ and big tears sprang to the child’s eyes. ‘The Lord forbid!’ said Jean, ‘but, whisht now, and be as quiet as a mouse--she’s worn, and wearied, and grieved at her heart. When ane ‘s in sair trouble sleep is sweet.’ ‘I wonder if she ay dreams of Margaret like me,’ said little Mary. ‘Eh, mother, Margaret comes and stands by my bed every night!’ ‘Oh, bairn, whisht, and no break my heart!’ cried Jean, uneasily. ‘Ye were ay the one for dreams.’ ‘But I’m no feared,’ said little Mary, ‘whiles she speaks, but I never can mind what she says. It’s just the same to me as if she was living. Then I used to see her a’ day, and now I see her a’ night--and she has ay light round like an angel out of Heaven.’ ‘Oh, whisht, with your dreams!’ cried the mother with a tone of anger, which belied the sudden tremor in her heart. ‘Have ye nae lessons to learn like Jamie? He’s away on the braes, the poor callant! with his book.’ ‘He’s making a whistle out of a rowan-tree branch,’ said Mary; ‘I cried upon him as I passed, but he wouldna come in, and he’ll cut his fingers, for it’s getting dark.’ ‘Eh me, he’s an awfu’ laddie!’ said poor Jean, rushing to the door. What with her precocious daughter, and her backward son, and Isabel whose heart it was so hard to keep, she had, as she herself expressed it, ‘a bonnie handful.’ But fortunately the one anxiety kept the other in check, and uneasiness about the cutting of Jamie’s fingers dulled in her mind the painful impression of Mary’s dreams; and then night fell, and the children came in, and Isabel awoke to a sense of warmth and comfort. She did not even propose to retire into her dignity in the parlour, but stayed in the elbow-chair, and even smiled as she had scarcely done before. She was glad to take refuge among them--glad to avoid the inevitable encounter with her own thoughts; and indeed her mind had taken refuge in a kind of insensibility. She had felt so much that for the moment she could feel no more.