an as of old, as though she were about to soothe a frightened
child with a fairy tale:

"'Twas a veesion, I think, though a dream it may hae been. But whichever
or whatever it was, it concerned my little boy, who has grown to be a big
giant, so much that I woke all of a tremble. Laddie dear, I thought that
I saw ye being married." This gave me an opening, though a small one,
for comforting her, so I took it at once:

"Why, dear, there isn't anything to alarm you in that, is there? It was
only the other day when you spoke to me about the need of my getting
married, if it was only that you might have children of your boy playing
around your knees as their father used to do when he was a helpless wee
child himself."

"That is so, laddie," she answered gravely. "But your weddin' was none
so merry as I fain would see. True, you seemed to lo'e her wi' all yer
hairt. Yer eyes shone that bright that ye might ha' set her afire, for
all her black locks and her winsome face. But, laddie, that was not
all--no, not though her black een, that had the licht o' all the stars o'
nicht in them, shone in yours as though a hairt o' love an' passion, too,
dwelt in them. I saw ye join hands, an' heard a strange voice that
talked stranger still, but I saw none ither. Your eyes an' her eyes, an'
your hand an' hers, were all I saw. For all else was dim, and the
darkness was close around ye twa. And when the benison was spoken--I
knew that by the voices that sang, and by the gladness of her een, as
well as by the pride and glory of yours--the licht began to glow a wee
more, an' I could see yer bride. She was in a veil o' wondrous fine
lace. And there were orange-flowers in her hair, though there were
twigs, too, and there was a crown o' flowers on head wi' a golden band
round it. And the heathen candles that stood on the table wi' the Book
had some strange effect, for the reflex o' it hung in the air o'er her
head like the shadow of a crown. There was a gold ring on her finger and
a silver one on yours." Here she paused and trembled, so that, hoping to
dispel her fears, I said, as like as I could to the way I used to when I
was a child:

"Go on, Aunt Janet."

She did not seem to recognize consciously the likeness between past and
present; but the effect was there, for she went on more like her old
self, though there was a prophetic gravity in her voice, more marked than
I had ever heard from her:

"All this I've told ye w