onant ring of a
Faith that knew it was well with the dead that die in the Lord. It was
mainly to the living he spoke, asking them solemnly, "What does the
Lord require of you? Only this service--that you do justly, and love
mercy, and walk humbly with your God."

Then Margot's sons, Norman and Eneas, lifted the light coffin. The
Domine walked in front of it, and all the men present followed them to
the open grave, in the old kirk yard. In Scotland women do not go to
the grave. Christine locked herself in her room, and the women
mourners gradually returned to their homes.

That night she was quite alone, and she could give free outlet to her
love, and grief, and hope. She felt her mother in every room. She
could not believe she had gone far away. At times, walking about the
desolate house, she called her mother with passionate weeping again,
in the soft low voice that she had used when soothing her pain and
weariness. At length even her superb vitality gave way, and she fell
upon her bed in a comforting, restorative sleep.

Morning found her ready and able to face the new life. She rose with
the dawn, ate her breakfast, and then lifted the hardest duty before
her. This was to brush and carefully fold away Margot's last simple
clothing. Margot herself had cared for her one silk dress, her bits
of lace, and the beads and rings and combs of the days of her health
and vanity. Christine had seen her face wet with tears as she locked
them in the trunk, and had kissed those tears away with promises of
renewed life. But there was no one with her to kiss away the tears she
shed over the simple gowns of Margot's last hard days. As she was
doing this loving duty, she thought of the angels folding up neatly
the simple linen garments in which Christ had been buried. With such
thoughts in her heart, oh how lovingly she stroked the plain cotton
gowns, and the one black merino skirt, that had made up Margot's last
wardrobe. Her tears dropped over them, and she turned the key with a
little cry so heart-broken that no doubt her angel wept with her.

"Oh Mither, Mither!" she cried, "how little had ye for a' the days o'
your hard, sorrowfu', painfu', fifty-five years--for a' your loveless
girlhood--for a' your wifely watchings and fearings for feyther on the
stormy seas--for a' your mitherhood's pains and cares--for the lang,
cruel years you were walking i' the Valley o' the Shadow o' Death--for
a' the years o' your hard, daily wark, lo