Steenie stood still, and throwing back his head, stared for some
moments up into the great heavens over him. Then he said:

'It's a bonny day, the day the bonny man bides in! The ither day--the
day the lave o' ye bides in--the day whan I'm no mysel but a sair
ooncomfortable collie--that day's ower het--and sometimes ower cauld;
but the day he bides in is aye jist what a day sud be! Ay, it's that!
it's that!'

He threw himself down, and lay for a minute looking up into the sky.
Kirsty stood and regarded him with loving eyes.

'I hae a' the bonny day afore me!' he murmured to himself. 'Eh, but
it's better to be a man nor a beast Snootie's a fine beast, and a gran'
collie, but I wud raither be mysel--a heap raither--aye at han' to
catch a sicht o' the bonny man! Ye maun gang hame to yer bed, Kirsty!--
Is't the bonny man comes til ye i' yer dreams and says, "Gang til him,
Kirsty, and be mortal guid til him"? It maun be surely that!'

'Willna ye gang wi' me, Steenie, as far as the door?' rejoined Kirsty,
almost beseechingly, and attempting no answer to what he had last said.

It was at times such as this that Kirsty knew sadness. When she had to
leave her brother on the hillside all the long night, to look on no
human face, hear no human word, but wander in strangest worlds of his
own throughout the slow dark hours, the sense of a separation worse
than death would wrap her as in a shroud. In his bodily presence,
however far away in thought or sleep or dreams his soul might be, she
could yet tend him with her love; but when he was out of her sight, and