ast few years this good old couple
seemed to have reached a Beulah land. They had enough laid by to
support them comfortably now that their children had all flown from
the home nest, and their quiet happy life flowed on without a ripple.

"Mother," Mr. Kensett had said, "I'm going to stop work now and lay
by. I'm getting old and we've got enough to do us I guess as long as
we stay. You can tend your flower-beds and darn my stockings, and
I'll make the garden and take care of the chickens, we'll just take
comfort a spell; if any body has earned the right to we have."

As often as once a week he remarked, "There's one thing I must see
to, right away; I must make my will, so that if I go first you'll be
sure to have the old place all to yourself. I want you to have every
cent of it to do as you please with."

And "Mother" always answered, "Now, father, don't! It won't make much
difference how it's fixed; it isn't anyways likely that I'll stay
long behind you, we've been together so long."

There came a morning when the hale, cheery old man did not rise with
the sun and step briskly about his work. The messenger came for him
in the night; and when the first streak of light in the early dawn
stole through his chamber window, and fell upon his face to waken
him, he did not awake, he had gone--in the darkness alone with the
messenger. Strange journey! Mysterious messenger! His grey coat hung
over the chair where he laid it off, the garden tools stood against
the fence, the house had a strange silence, the sunshine a cold
glare. He who passed in and out yesterday, and worked and smiled and
talked and read the news, to-day lay in the darkened parlour white,
cold, and still. No, not that! To-day walked the golden
streets--joined in the everlasting song, and looked upon the face of
his Lord. The old Bible lay open on the stand, the psalm-book beside
it, his glasses shut into the place where he sung at family worship a
few hours before, and the psalm he sung--his favourite--was in the
words of the quaint old version:

"I will both lay me down in peace,
And quiet sleep will take;
Because then only me to dwell
In safety, Lord, dost make."

Had he known how quiet the sleep was to be, the calm triumphant faith
of the singer would not have wavered, nor would the peace with which
he laid down have been less.

The will had never been made, so the old homestead must be sol