's.
Suddenly her eyes opened wide, fastening themselves upon her son.

"I'll sune win hame," she murmured gladly, "an' I want ye to say yir bit
prayer to me, Robin, afore I gang, the way ye did when ye were a
bairnie. Kneel doon, Robin, an' say it to me, an' we'll baith say it to
God, for I'm weary tae. 'Noo I lay me,' ye ken."

The strong man bowed beside his mother's bed, and the great anthem
began, the sobbing bass of the broken heart mingling with the feeble
dying voice--

"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray Thee Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray Thee Lord my soul to take."

Suddenly she pointed with uplifted hand: "Oh, faither, I see oor Elsie's
face--an' the token's in her haun', an' it's a' bricht wi' gowden licht.
She's biddin' us a' hame--me, an' faither, an' Robin----" and she passed
into the homeland bearing the prodigal's name with her up to God.

I gently closed her eyes. Donald stood long beside the bed; then, taking
his son into his arms, he said--

"Yir mither's bye the gate."

XIX

_A MAIDEN'S LOVE_

What self-contradicting things we are! The very joys we crave bring
sorrow when they come; for they crowd out some only lesser joy, which,
rejected, turns to bitterness and takes its long revenge. It is one of
the blessed laws of life that no heart, however hospitable, can
entertain more than one sorrow at one time, how many so ever be waiting
at the door. Each must wait its turn.

But alas! Joy has its corresponding law; every heart's pleasure is an
alternative, and if much we would enjoy, much also we must renounce. Joy
usually comes as twins, and the great perplexity is to discern which the
first-born is, that our homage may not return unto us void.

Of many of our deepest longings may it not be said that their
fulfillment would be our keenest disappointment? For instance, the wife
of our family physician is forever lamenting that no spouse in all New
Jedboro sees as little of her husband as does she, forever longing that
he might be released to the enjoyment of his own fireside. Yet should a
fickle or convalescent public suddenly so release him, our doctor's
wife would be of all women most miserable.

Even as I write, I am disturbed by a lad of twenty who starts to-day on
his long journey to Athabasca and the waiting prairies of our great
Canadian West.

Full of pathetic joy is his youthful face; but his mother is bowed
beside the b