right,' murmured the dying woman. 'Meg, I've settled all about
my burial with the undertaker and Mr Grigg downstairs; and you'll have
nothing to do but stay here till they take me away. If you like, you
and Robin and baby may walk after me; but be sure see everybody out,
and lock the door safe afore you start.'

She lay silent for some minutes, touching one after another the clothes
spread upon the bed as Meg replaced them in the box, and then, locking
it, put the key into the bag, and hung it round her neck.

'Little Meg,' said her mother, 'do you remember one Sunday evening us
hearing a sermon preached in the streets?'

'Yes, mother,' answered Meg promptly.

'What was it he said so often?' she whispered. 'You learnt the verse
once at school.'

'I know it still,' said Meg. '"If ye then, being evil, know how to
give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your Father
which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?"'

'Ay, that's it,' she said faintly; 'and he said we needn't wait to be
God's children, but we were to ask Him for good things at once, because
He had sent His own Son to be our Saviour, and to die for us. "Them
that ask Him, them that ask Him"; he said it over and over again. Eh!
but I've asked Him a hundred times to let me live till father comes
home, or to let me take baby along with me.'

'May be that isn't a good thing,' said Meg. 'God knows what are good
things.'

The dying mother pondered over these words for some time, until a
feeble smile played upon her wan face.

'It 'ud be a good thing anyhow,' she said, 'to ask Him to forgive me my
sins, and take me to heaven when I die--wouldn't it, Meg?'

Yes, that's sure to be a good thing,' answered Meg thoughtfully.

'Then I'll ask Him for that all night,' said her mother, 'and to be
sure take care of you all till father comes back. That 'ud be another
good thing.'

She turned her face round to the wall with a deep sigh, and closed her
eyelids, but her lips kept moving silently from time to time. Meg
cried softly to herself in her chair before the fire, but presently she
dozed a little for very heaviness of heart, and dreamed that her
father's ship was come into dock, and she, and her mother, and the
children were going down the dingy streets to meet him. She awoke with
a start; and creeping gently to her mother's side, laid her warm little
hand upon hers. It was deadly cold, with a chill such as little Meg
had