t Miss Graeme, was it?" said Mrs Snow, with a smile; "maybe I did.
I was as good at that as at most things. Yes, she is content with
life, now. God's peace is in her heart, and in her life, too. I need
not have been afraid."

"Rosie's sobered down some, don't you think?" said Mr Snow, with some
hesitation. "She used to be as lively as a cricket. Maybe it is only
my notion, but she seems different."

"She's older and wiser, and she'll be none the worse to take a soberer
view of life than she used to do," said Mrs Snow. "I have seen nothing
beyond what was to be looked for in the circumstances. But I have been
so full of myself, and my own troubles of late, I may not have taken
notice. Her sister is not anxious about her; I would have seen that.
The bairn is gathering sense--that is all, I think."

"Well! yes. It will be all right. I don't suppose it will be more than
a passing cloud, and I might have known better than to vex you with it."

"Indeed, you have not vexed me, and I am not going to vex myself with
any such thought. It will all come right, as you say. I have seen her
sister in deeper water than any that can be about her, and she is on dry
land now. `And hath set my feet upon a rock, and established my
goings,'" added Mrs Snow, softly. "That is the way with my bairn, I
believe. Thank God. And they'll both be the better for this quiet
time, and we'll take the good of it without wishing for more than is
wise, or setting our hearts on what may fail. See, they are coming down
the brae together. It is good to see them."

The first weeks of their stay in Merleville had been weeks of great
anxiety. Long after a very difficult and painful operation had been
successfully performed, Mrs Snow remained in great danger, and the two
girls gave themselves up to the duty of nursing and caring for her, to
the exclusion of all other thoughts and interests. To Mr Snow it
seemed that his wife had been won back to life by their devotion, and
Janet herself, when her long swoon of exhaustion and weakness was over,
remembered that, even at the worst time of all, a dim consciousness of
the presence of her darlings had been with her, and a wish to stay, for
their sakes, had held her here, when her soul seemed floating away to
unseen worlds.

By a change, so gradual as scarcely to be perceptible, from day to day,
she came back to a knowledge of their loving care, and took up the
burden of her life again. Not joy