One night she had fallen quiet, and, as we hoped, asleep; her eyes were
shut. We put down the gas, and sat watching her. Suddenly she sat up in
bed, and, taking a bed-gown which was lying on it rolled up, she held it
eagerly to her breast,--to the right side. We could see her eyes bright
with a surprising tenderness and joy, bending over this bundle of
clothes. She held it as a woman holds her sucking child; opening out her
night-gown impatiently, and holding it close, and brooding over it, and
murmuring foolish little words, as over one whom his mother comforteth,
and who sucks and is satisfied. It was pitiful and strange to see her
wasted dying look, keen and yet vague,--her immense love.

"Preserve me!" groaned James, giving way. And then she rocked backward
and forward, as if to make it sleep, hushing it, and wasting on it her
infinite fondness. "Wae's me, doctor! I declare she's thinkin' it's that
bairn." "What bairn?" "The only bairn we ever had; our wee Mysie, and
she's in the Kingdom forty years and mair." It was plainly true: the
pain in the breast, telling its urgent story to a bewildered, ruined
brain, was misread and mistaken; it suggested to her the uneasiness of a
breast full of milk, and then the child; and so again once more they
were together, and she had her ain wee Mysie in her bosom.

This was the close. She sank rapidly: the delirium left her; but, as she
whispered, she was "clean silly;" it was the lightening before the final
darkness. After having for some time lain still, her eyes shut, she
said, "James!" He came close to her, and, lifting up her calm, clear,
beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, turned to me kindly but
shortly, looked for Rab but could not see him, then turned to her
husband again, as if she would never leave off looking, shut her eyes
and composed herself. She lay for some time breathing quick, and passed