She drew him gently from the room where grannie was slumbering, so that she need not be disturbed. It seemed to her the strangest thing that her grandfather should speak to her in this way, and that she should have courage to answer him. He sat down on a seat by the door, and leaned his chin on the hand that rested on his staff, and looked away over Ythan fields to the hills beyond. But whether he saw them or not was doubtful, for his eyes were dazed and heavy with trouble, and Katie could not bear to see him so.
“She is not so very ill,” she repeated. “She is sometimes better and sometimes worse, but she has no thought that she is going to die. She will be better soon.”
“She is a good ten years younger than I am. I should go first by rights. But she has had much to weary her, and she would doubtless be glad to rest.”
“No, grandfather, she would not. She is glad at the thought that she will be spared a little while for—all our sakes.”
“Who is that coming down the road? It is the minister, I think, and Betsey Holt.”
The old man rose hastily.
“I’ll awa’ up the brae,” said he. “No, it is no disrespect to the minister, but I canna hear his words to-day.”
And up the hill he went to the pasture-bars, and through the pasture “to Pine-tree Hollow,” Katie thought, as her eyes followed him anxiously.
“But He may show him His face, up yonder,” said Katie, with tears; “and I am sure, and so is Miss Betsey, that she is no’ so very ill.”
Grannie had never thought herself very ill. Even when all her days were spent in bed, she only called herself weary at first. There had been a very warm week about that time, and she had suffered from the heat, and had kept herself quiet. But she did not think herself ill, and certainly Katie did not think it. For though she was not strong, she did not suffer much, except that she was feverish and restless now and then, and she was always sweet and bright and easily pleased, and not at all like the sick people that Katie had seen. It was a pleasure to be with her, to wait on her, and to listen to her. For there were times when she had much to say, soothing her own restlessness with happy talk of many things which Katie liked to hear.