When the nurse arrived, my grandfather and I went home But we could not sleep; we lighted the kitchen fire, and sat over it in silence for a long time.

Then my grandfather said:  ’Alick, my lad, it has given me such a turn as I haven’t had for many a day.  It might have been me, Alick; it might just as well have been me!’

I put my hand in his, and grasped it very tightly, as he said this.  ‘Yes,’ he said again, ’it might have been me; and if it had, I wonder where I should have been now?’

I didn’t speak, and he went on,—­’I wonder where Jem is now, poor fellow; I’ve been thinking of that all night, ever since I saw him lying there at the bottom of that boat.’

So I told him of what Jem Millar had said to me the last time I had seen him.

‘On the Rock!’ said my grandfather.  Did he say he was on the Rock?  Dear me!  I wish I could say as much, Alick, my lad.’

‘Can’t you and I come as he came, grandfather?’ I said.  ’Can’t we come and build on the Rock, too?’

‘Well,’ said my grandfather, ’I wish we could, my lad.  I begin to see what he meant, and what the old gentleman meant too.  He said, “You’re on the sand, my friend; you’re on the sand, and it won’t stand the storm; no, it won’t stand the storm!” I’ve just had those words in my ears all the time we were sitting over there by Mrs. Millar.  But, dear me, I don’t know how to get on the Rock; I don’t indeed.’

The whole of the next week poor Mrs. Millar lay between life and death.  At first the doctor gave no hope whatever of her recovery; but after a time she grew a little better, and he began to speak more encouragingly.  I spent my time with the poor children, and hardly left them a moment, doing all I could to keep them quietly happy, that they might not disturb their mother.

One sorrowful day only, my grandfather and I were absent for several hours from the lighthouse; for we went ashore to follow poor Jem Millar to the grave.  His poor wife was unconscious, and knew nothing of what was going on.

When, after some weeks, the fever left her, she was still very weak and unfit for work.  But there was much to be done, and she had no time to sit still, for a new man had been appointed to take her husband’s place; and he was to come into the house at the beginning of the month.

We felt very dull and sad the day that the Millars went away.  We went down to the pier with them, and saw them on board the steamer—­Mrs. Millar, the six little children, and the servant-girl, all dressed in mourning, and all of them crying.  They were going to Mrs. Millar’s home, far away in the north of Scotland, where her old father and mother were still living.

The island seemed very lonely and desolate when they were gone.  If it had not been for our little sunbeam, as my grandfather called her, I do not know what we should have done.  Every day we loved her more, and what we dreaded most was, that a letter would arrive some Monday morning to tell us that she must go away from us.