The day crept on. The invalid was feverish. His nurse obeyed the doctor
minutely, to a single drop. She had her tea brought her, but when the
supper hour arrived went to join her father in the kitchen.




CHAPTER V.


AFTER SUPPER.

They always eat in the kitchen. Strange to say, there was no dining-room
in the house, though there was a sweetly old-fashioned drawing-room. The
servant was with the sufferer, but Alexa was too much in the sick-room,
notwithstanding, to know that she was eating her porridge and milk. The
laird partook but sparingly, on the ground that the fare tended to
fatness, which affliction of age he congratulated himself on having
hitherto escaped. They eat in silence, but not a glance of her father
that might indicate a want escaped the daughter. When the meal was
ended, and the old man had given thanks, Alexa put on the table a big
black Bible, which her father took with solemn face and reverent
gesture. In the course of his nightly reading of the New Testament, he
had come to the twelfth chapter of St. Luke, with the Lord's parable of
the rich man whose soul they required of him: he read it beautifully,
with an expression that seemed to indicate a sense of the Lord's meaning
what He said.

"We will omit the psalm this evening--for the sake of the sufferer," he