dering sheep to the true fold.

Once more his thoughts turned to his little ones. "Janet," he
whispered, as a woman of middle age, of spare form, with strongly marked
features, betokening firmness and good sense, and clothed in the
humblest style of attire, glided noiselessly into the room. "I feel
that I am going." He lifted up his pale and shrivelled hand, and
pointed to his children. "What is to become of them, it is hard to
leave them destitute, utterly destitute, not a friend in the world from
whom they may claim assistance."

"Dinna talk so, minister," said the woman, approaching him, and placing
his arm beneath the bed-clothes. "Ye yoursel have often told us to put
faith in God, that He is the Father of the fatherless, and the husband
of the widow. The dear bairns will nay want while He looks after them.
I hanna dwelt forty years or more with the mistress that's gone, and her
sainted mother before her, to desert those she has left behind, while I
ha' finger to work with, and eyes to see. I'll never forget either to
impress on their minds all the lessons you have taught me. It would
have been little worth ganging to kirk if I had not remembered them too.
I am a poor weak body mysel, it will not be me but He who watches over
us will do it, let that comfort you, minister. The bairns will never be
so badly off as ye are thinking, now that fever has made body and soul
weak, but the soul will soon recover, and ye will rejoice with joy
unspeakable. I repeat but your ain words, minister, and I ken they are
true."

"Ye are right, Janet. My soul is reviving," whispered the dying man.
"Call in the bairns. I would have them round me once more. The end is
near."

Janet knew that her master spoke too truly; though it grieved her loving
heart to put a stop to the play of the happy young creatures, and to
bring them to a scene of sorrow and death. "But it maun be," she said
to herself, as she went to the door of the manse. "He who kens all
things kens what is best, and the minister is ganging away from his
toils and troubles here to that happy home up there, where he will meet
the dear mistress, and, better still, be with Him who loved him, and
shed His blood to redeem him, as he himsel has often and often told us
from the pulpit."

She went some way down the hill, unwilling to utter her usual shrill
call to the young ones. "Ye maun come in now, bairns," she said, in a
gentle tone; when the children came ru