ving and tending your six
sons and mysel', feeding, dressing, and makin' us learn our catechism
and our Bible verses--curing fish, and selling fish, makin' nets, and
mending nets, cooking and knitting and sewing. Surely the good Master
saw it all, and will gie you His 'well done,' and the wage ye hae
earned."

The bits of crochet work that her mother's trembling fingers had
made--her last work one little table mat unfinished--had a strange
sacredness, and a far more touching claim. She took these to her own
room. "They hold Mither's last thoughts. They seem a part o' her. I'll
never lose sight o' them while I draw breath o' life. Never!" And she
kissed and folded them up, with the dried rose leaves from Margot's
garden.

Then she stayed her tears, and looked round the disordered house.
Everything was out of its proper place. That circumstance alone made
her miserable, for Christine was what her neighbors called a
"pernickity" housekeeper. She must have a place for everything, and
everything in its place. Until she had her home in this precise
condition, she resolved to take no other trouble into consideration.
And simple and even derogatory as it appears to be, nothing is more
certainly efficacious in soothing grief, than hard physical labor. It
took her two days to put the cottage in its usual spotless condition,
and during those two days, she gave herself no moment in which to
think of any trouble before her.

She knew well that there must be trouble. Her mother's burial money,
put away twenty-nine years previously, had proved quite insufficient
for modern ideals and modern prices. She was nearly out of money and
there would be debts to meet, and every debt would be to her like a
wolf baying round the house. That was one trouble. Cluny was another.
She knew he would now urge an immediate marriage, and that his plea
would have an appearance of extreme justice. She also knew that he
would be supported by Norman, whose wife had long set her heart on
occupying the Ruleson cottage. That was a second trouble. The third
was Neil. He had been immediately notified of his mother's death, and
he had taken no notice of the event. The other boys not present, were
all at sea, but where was Neil?

These things she would not yet permit her mind to consider.--In fact,
the tossed-up, uncleanly house, dulled her faculties. She could not
think clearly, until all was spotless and orderly. Then she could meet
trouble clear-headed and