For me there were neither dreams nor sleep. All night I sat in my father's elbow-chair beside the fire, not caring to go to bed. At first the flames kept me company as they rose and fell and flickered, lighting the room fitfully. The stars shone in, glittering through the window. Then the fire died down to a dull glow. It grew black, with only a red spark here and there. It went quite out, and the room grew very cold. The night waned. A mist rose up and covered the stars. It became darker and darker. Then I suppose I fell asleep, for when I looked again, the grey chill of a winter's dawn was in the room. It was no longer to-day, but yesterday, that we heard of Cuthbert's death. I dreaded seeing Hildred in her sorrow. It made me feel strange to her, as if I should not know how to greet her, and that instead of her familiar self, she would be to me as a mourner upon whom a great grief had newly fallen! Poor little Hildred. The strangeness all went away, and was forgotten directly we met, and she ran to me and held my hands, crying, 'Oh Willie, I wanted you. He belonged to you and me.' 'But I can't feel as if it could be true,' she said presently. 'I keep thinking all the time--of course it's foolish--that perhaps old Esther Reynolds made a mistake after all, and that David Moore meant some one else. Eh, Willie?' I shook my head. 'But I can go to see him, and ask him about it,' I said, after thinking a little. 'Oh, will you? And ask him to tell us,'--her voice failed, and she shuddered,--'ask him whether it was great pain, and if it was soon over. I cannot bear to think he suffered long.' Ah, Hildred! so you too had thought of those dreary questions that had been haunting me all night. 'I will go to-day,' I said. And that evening I was at the Ferry House. It was generally a bleak place enough; but this afternoon winter sunshine was giving it a cheerful look, and a holly tree, brilliant with berries, made a bright spot of colour near the door. They say trouble makes people selfish. I scarcely remembered until now that what brought us sorrow had filled this house with rejoicing. The picture of home gladness that met my eyes as I went in, came upon me in sharp contrast with Hildred's tear-stained cheeks and heavy eyes. Some one had stuck holly-branches all over the room, usually so bare. The fire blazed cheerily. On one side sat David Moore's little wife, quiet still, but with a smile of great contentment on her face, looking down at her husband, who sat on a wooden stool at her feet, with his arms resting on her lap and his eyes fixed on her.