peated, "what is it? Don't you think we can manage to
keep together till Allister comes home? Is it that, Hamish? Tell me
what you think it is right for us to do."

"It is not that, Shenac; and I have no right to say anything--I, who can
do nothing."

"Hamish!" exclaimed his sister, in a tone in which surprise and pain
were mingled.

"If I were like the rest," continued Hamish--"I, who am the eldest; but
even Dan can do more than I can. You must not think of me, Shenac, in
your plans."

For a moment Shenac was silent from astonishment; this was so unlike the
cheerful spirit of Hamish. Then she said,--

"Hamish, the work is not all. What could Dan or any of us do without
you to plan for us? We are the hands, you are the head."

Hamish made an impatient movement. "Allister would be head and hands
too," he said bitterly.

"But, Hamish, you are not Allister; you are Hamish, just as you have
always been. You are not surely going to fail our mother now--you, who
have done more than all of us put together to comfort her since then?"

Hamish made no answer.

"It is wrong for you to look at it in that way, Hamish," continued
Shenac. "I once heard my father say that though you were lame, God
might have higher work for you to do than for any of the rest of us. I
did not know what he meant then, but I know now."

"Hush! don't, Shenac," said Hamish.

"No; I must speak, Hamish. It is not right to fret because the work you
have to do is not just the work you would choose. And you'll break my
heart if you vex yourself about--because you are not like the rest. Not
one of us all is so dear to my mother and the rest as you are; you know
_that_, Hamish. And why should you think of this now, more than
before?"

"Shenac, I have been a child till now, thinking of nothing. My looking
forward was but the dreaming of idle dreams. I have wakened since my
father died--wakened to find myself useless, a burden, with so much to
be done."

"Hamish," said Shenac gravely, "that is not true, and it's foolish,
besides. If you _were_ useless--blind as well as lame--if you were as
cankered and ill to do with as you are mild and sweet, there would be no
question of burden, because you are one of us, our own. If you were
thinking of Angus Dhu, you might speak of burdens; but it is nonsense to
say that to me. You know that you are more to my mother than any of us,
and you are more to me than all my brothers put together; bu