And glad would we be if, by the laws of historical truth, our stranger story could have ended here; but, alas! we are obliged to pain the good reader’s heart by saying that the demon who had left the troubled little breast of Mary Maconie took possession of Annie’s.  The very next day she lay extended on the bed, panting under the fell embrace of the relentless foe.  As Mary got better, Annie grew worse; and her case was so far unlike Mary’s, that there was more a tendency to a fevered state of the brain.  The little sufferer watched with curious eyes the anxious faces of her parents, and seemed conscious that she was in a dangerous condition.  Nor did it fail to occur to her as a great mystery as well as wonder, why they did not send for the wonderful being who had so promptly saved the life of her sister.  The thought haunted her, yet she was afraid to mention it to her mother, because it implied a sense of danger—­a fear which one evening she overcame.  Fixing her eyes, now every moment waxing less clear, on the face of her mother—­

“Oh mother, dear,” she whispered, “why do you not send for the pelican?”

In other circumstances the mother would have smiled; but, alas, no smile could be seen on that pale face.  Whether the pelican was sent for we know not, but certain it is, that he had no power to save poor Annie, and she died within the week.  But she did not die in vain, for the large sum insured upon her life eventually came to Mary, whom she loved so dearly.

THE WIDOW’S AE SON.

We will not name the village where the actors in the following incidents resided; and it is sufficient for our purpose to say that it lay in the county of Berwick, and within the jurisdiction of the Presbytery of Dunse.  Eternity has gathered forty winters into its bosom since the principal events took place.  Janet Jeffrey was left a widow before her only child had completed his tenth year.  While her husband lay upon his deathbed, he called her to his bedside, and, taking her hand within his, he groaned, gazed on her face, and said, “Now, Janet, I’m gaun a lang and a dark journey; but ye winna forget, Janet—­ye winna forget—­for ye ken it has aye been uppermost in my thoughts and first in my desires, to mak Thamas a minister; promise me that ae thing, Janet, that, if it be HIS will, ye will see it performed, an’ I will die in peace.”  In sorrow the pledge was given, and in joy performed.  Her life became wrapt up in her son’s life; and it was her morning and her evening prayer that she might live to see her “dear Thamas a shining light in the kirk.”  Often she declared that he was an “auld farrant bairn, and could ask a blessing like ony minister.”  Our wishes and affections, however, often blind our judgment.  Nobody but the mother thought the son fitted for the kirk, nor the kirk fitted for him.  There was always something original, almost poetical about him; but still Thomas was “no orator as Brutus was.”