ten face, only it looked sunken and
pale, and the poor blind eyes had a pathetic, unseeing look in them. To
my surprise, she looked neat and clean. I had yet to learn the slow
martyrdom the poor soul had endured during the last few months in that
squalid, miserable household. To her, cleanliness was next to godliness.
She had brought up a large family well and thriftily, and now in her old
age and helplessness her life had no comfort in it. I was rather
surprised to see Mr. Hamilton shake the wrinkled hand heartily.

'Well, Elspeth, what news of your son? Is he likely to come home soon?'

'Nay, doctor,' in a faint old treble: 'Andrew cannot leave his job for
two or three months to come. He is terrible down-hearted about poor Mary.
Ay, she has been a good wife to him and the bairns; but look at her now!
Poor thing! Poor thing!'

'We must all dree our weird. You are a canny Scotch-woman, and know what
that means. Come, you must cheer up, for I have brought a young lady with
me who is going to put your daughter-in-law a little more comfortable and
see after her from time to time.'

'Ay, but that is cheering news,' returned Elspeth; and one of the rare
tears of old age stole down her withered cheek. 'My poor Mary! she is
patient, and never complains; but the good Lord is laying a heavy cross
on her.'

'That is true,' muttered Mr. Hamilton, and then he said, in a
business-like tone, 'Now for the patient, Miss Garston'; and as he led
the way across the narrow passage we could hear the hard, gasping cough
of the sick woman.

Peggy, with the baby still in her arms, was trying to stir a black,
cindery fire, that was filling the room with smoke. The child was crying,
and the poor invalid was sitting up in bed nearly suffocated by her
cough. The great four-post bed blocked up the little window. The remains
of a meal were still on the big round table. Some clothes were drying by
the hearth; a thin tortoise-shell cat was licking up a stream of milk
that was filtering slowly across the floor, in the midst of jugs, cans,
a broken broom, some children's toys, and two or three boots. The bed
looked as though it had not been made for days; the quilt and valance
were deplorably dirty; but the poor creature herself looked neat and
clean, and her hair was drawn off from her sunken cheeks and knotted
carefully at the back of her head. Mr. Hamilton uttered an exclamation
of impatience when he saw the smoke, and almost snatched the poker