first the air, and then a part of the chorus and words, of what had
been, perhaps, the song of a jolly harvest-home:
 
»Our work is over - over now,
The goodman wipes his weary brow,
The last long wain wends slow away,
And we are free to sport and play.
 
The night comes on when sets the sun,
And labour ends when day is done.
When Autumn's gone and Winter's come,
We hold our jovial harvest-home.«
 
Jeanie advanced to the bedside when the strain was finished, and addressed Madge
by her name. But it produced no symptoms of recollection. On the contrary, the
patient, like one provoked by interruption, changed her posture, and called out
with an impatient tone, »Nurse - nurse, turn my face to the wa', that I may
never answer to that name ony mair, and never see mair of a wicked world.«
    The attendant on the hospital arranged her in her bed as she desired, with
her face to the wall and her back to the light. So soon as she was quiet in this
new position, she began again to sing in the same low and modulated strains, as
if she was recovering the state of abstraction which the interruption of her
visitants had disturbed. The strain, however, was different, and rather
resembled the music of the Methodist hymns, though the measure of the song was
similar to that of the former:
 
»When the fight of grace is fought -
When the marriage vest is wrought -
When Faith hath chased cold Doubt away,
And Hope but sickens at delay -
 
When Charity, imprison'd here,
Longs for a more expanded sphere,
Doff thy robes of sin and clay;
Christian, rise, and come away.«
 
The strain was solemn and affecting, sustained as it was by the pathetic warble
of a voice which had naturally been a fine one, and which weakness, if it
diminished its power, had improved in softness. Archibald, though a follower of
the court, and a pococurante by profession, was confused, if not affected; the
dairy-maid blubbered; and Jeanie felt the tears rise spontaneously to her eyes.
Even the nurse, accustomed to all modes in which the spirit can pass, seemed
considerably moved.
    The patient was evidently growing weaker, as was intimated by an apparent
difficulty of breathing, which seized her from time to time, and by the
utterance of low listless moans, intimating that nature was succumbing in the
last conflict. But the spirit of melody, which must