eavour to melt in the flames of her lamp. She
wrung out a few drops,--barely enough to soak her wick. This would not
burn five minutes. She persevered to the last moment,--saying to
herself, "Not once for these seventeen years since I saw my husband
drown, has there been a dark night between this window and the sea. Not
once has my spark been put out: and I will not think it now. God can
kindle fire where He pleases. I have heard tell that people in foreign
countries have seen a lightning-shaft dart down into a forest, and make
a tree blaze up like a torch. God has His own ways."

All the while her hands wrought so busily that she scarcely felt their
aching in the cold of the night. But now her new wick was wanted, for
the old was going out. It blazed up, but she saw it must soon be gone.
She broke up her old stool, all shattered as it was already. Some
splinters she stuck one after another into the lamp; and then she burned
the larger pieces in the hearth, saying to herself incessantly, as if
for support, "God has His own ways."

But the rising and falling flame became more and more uncertain; and at
last, very suddenly, it went quite out. There was not, in another
minute, a spark left.

For a while there was silence in the cottage, now dark for the first
time since Annie was a widow. She crept to her cold bed; and there,
under cover of the strange darkness she shed a few tears. But soon she
said to herself, "God has His own ways of kindling our spirits as well
as the flame of a lamp. Perhaps by humbling me, or by changing my duty
when I became too fond of it, He may warm my heart to new trust in Him.
His will be done! But He will let me pray that there may be none in the
harbour this night who may drown, or be buffeted in the storm because He
is pleased to darken my light."

Before she had quite calmed her heart with this prayer, there was noise
at a little distance, and red gleams on the fitful mist which drove past
the window; and then followed a loud knocking at the door.

It was Macdonald with his people, come to see whether the lady was safe.
He looked perplexed and uneasy when Annie told him that she could not
think that the lady could be otherwise than safe, now she knew the
places about the island so well, and was so fearless. It often happened
that she was absent for a night and day; and no doubt the storm had this
night detained her and her companions in some sheltered place,--some
place