"On the fifth mornin after she had been taken sae ill, I came in till ask after her--for my neebor here had relieved me o' that night's watchin, and I had gotten to my bed. The moment I opened the door I saw that the hail room was hung in white, just as ye' see it now; an' I'm sure it staid that way a minute or sae; but when I winked it went awa. I kent there was a change no far off; an' when I went up to the bed, Elspat didna ken me. She was wirkin wi' her hand at the blankets, as if she were pickin aff the little motes; an' I could hear the beginning o' the dead rattle in her throat. I sat at her bedside for awhile, wi' my neebor here; and when she spoke to us, it was to say that the bed had grown hard and uneasy, and that she wished to be brought oot to the chair. Weel, we indulged her, though we baith kent that it wasna in the bed the uneasiness lay. Her mind, puir body, was carried at the time; she just kent that there was to be a death an' a lykewake; but no that the death an' the lykewake were to be her ain; an' whan she looked at the bed, she bade us tak down the black curtains an' put up the white; an' tauld us where the white were to be found. "'But where is the corp?' she said; 'it's no there--where is the corp?' "'O Elspat, it will be there vera soon,' said my neebor; an' that satisfied her. "She cam to hersel an hour afore she departed. God had been very guid to her, she said, a' her life lang, an' he hadna forsaken her at the last. He had been guid to her when he had gien her friens, an' guid to her when he took them to himsel; an' she kent she was now going to baith Him and them. There wasna such a difference, she said, atween life and death as folk were ready to think. She was sure that, though William had been ca'ed awa suddenly, he hadna been ca'ed without being prepared; an' now that her turn had come, an' that she was goin to meet wi' him, it was maybe as weel that he had left her early; for, till she had lost him, she had been owre licht an' thochtless; an' had it been her lot to hae lived in happiness wi' him, she micht hae remained licht an' thochtless still. She bade us baith fareweel, an' thanked an' blessed us; an' her last breath went awa in a prayer no half-an-hour after. Puir, decent body!--but she's no puir now." "A pretty portrait," whispered my companion, "of one of a class fast wearing away. Nothing more interests me in the story than the woman's undoubting faith in the supernatural; she does not even seem to know that what she believes so firmly herself, is so much as doubted by others. Try whether you can't bring up, by some means, a few other stories furnished with a similar machinery--a story of the second sight, for instance." "The only way of accomplishing that," I replied, "is by contributing a story of the kind myself."