scraps of forgotten rhymes, bits of
Latin verse, law references cited letter for letter, until I needed the
doctor myself, who threatened to put me from the house unless I showed
a more reasonable behavior.

On in the third week of Nancy's fever I heard that Danvers's wife was
ill, but this was nature, and I gave no more thought to the matter. On
the afternoon of the day on which the news was brought me the Arran
folks sent again to know if Dr. McMurtrie could be spared them, and we
sent him over immediately. On his return I asked him, in a perfunctory
way, how he had found things, and he returned an evasive answer; but
upon my insisting for the truth, he told me that Isabel had given birth
to a child the night before, but that it had died before morning, and
that she herself was in a most desperate state.

My heart went out to all this suffering, but death so near increased my
anxiety for my own child, and when the news was brought me on the
following morning that Isabel had passed away during the night, the
fear for Nancy rose high in me, and I became like a crazed creature,
wandering from one room to another, with half-begun prayers to God upon
my lips and a feeling of utter helplessness heavy on my soul.

Nine weeks of this I endured, nine weeks of such dread that I should
choose death in preference to living the time again, when one morning
in early spring Dr. Cameron, who had been watching by the bedside all
night, came to me. "I think, my lord," he said, "that the worst is by
with. Ye need worry no more," and at the words I buried my face in my
hands, as I sat at the table, and wept like a child.

On the day following this announcement, Sandy, who had refused to leave
me in my great anxiety, took his boy off to visit the New Republic
founded across seas, and Dr. McMurtrie, who kept his residence at
Stair, for I would listen to no word of his leaving us yet, watched the
dear one on her journey back from the valley of the shadow. It was late
summer before she was able to be about at all, and Hallowe'en was
celebrated by her first riding out.

As she grew stronger there were two changes I noted in her conduct, the
first of these being her unwillingness to see Hugh Pitcairn, whose
solicitude for her during her illness had knit us together by cords
never to be broken. If she knew he was in the house she would retire to
her own room, or if advised of his coming would go abroad to visit or
drive, in every way show