The early morning hour at which they were accustomed to rise, found the state of the sisters different from what might have been expected. A sound sleep had restored the spirit of Brenda’s lightsome eye, and the rose on her laughing cheek; the transient indisposition of the preceding night having left as little trouble on her look, as the fantastic terrors of Norna’s tale had been able to impress on her imagination. The looks of Minna, on the contrary, were melancholy, downcast, and apparently exhausted by watching and anxiety. They said at first little to each other, as if afraid of touching a subject so fraught with emotion as the scene of the preceding night. It was not until they had performed together their devotions, as usual, that Brenda, while lacing Minna’s boddice, (for they rendered the services of the toilet to each other reciprocally,) became aware of the paleness of her sister’s looks; and having ascertained, by a glance at the mirror, that her own did not wear the same dejection, she kissed Minna’s cheek, and said affectionately, “Claud Halcro was right, my dearest sister, when his poetical folly gave us these names of Night and Day.”
“And wherefore should you say so now?” said Minna.
“Because we each are bravest in the season that we take our name from: I was frightened wellnigh to death, by hearing those things last night, which you endured with courageous firmness; and now, when it is broad light, I can think of them with composure, while you look as pale as a spirit who is surprised by sunrise.”
“You are lucky, Brenda,” said her sister, gravely, “who can so soon forget such a tale of wonder and horror.”
“The horror,” said Brenda, “is never to be forgotten, unless one could hope that the unfortunate woman’s excited imagination, which shows itself so active in conjuring up apparitions, may have fixed on her an imaginary crime.”
“You believe nothing, then,” said Minna, “of her interview at the Dwarfie Stone, that wondrous place, of which so many tales are told, and which, for so many centuries, has been reverenced as the work of a demon, and as his abode?”
“I believe,” said Brenda, “that our unhappy relative is no impostor,—and therefore I believe that she was at the Dwarfie Stone during a thunderstorm, that she sought shelter in it, and that, during a swoon, or during sleep perhaps, some dream visited her, concerned with the popular traditions with which she was so conversant; but I cannot easily believe more.”
“And yet the event,” said Minna, “corresponded to the dark intimations of the vision.”
“Pardon me,” said Brenda, “I rather think the dream would never have been put into shape, or perhaps remembered at all, but for the event. She told us herself she had nearly forgot the vision, till after her father’s dreadful death,—and who shall warrant how much of what she then supposed herself to remember was not the creation of her own fancy, disordered as it naturally was by the horrid accident? Had she really seen and conversed with a necromantic dwarf, she was likely to remember the conversation long enough—at least I am sure I should.”
“Brenda,” replied Minna, “you have heard the good minister of the Cross-Kirk say, that human wisdom was worse than folly, when it was applied to mysteries beyond its comprehension; and that, if we believed no more than we could understand, we should resist the evidence of our senses, which presented us, at every turn, circumstances as certain as they were unintelligible.”