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house, and the wide lands which lay about it, had passed to another Esselmont, a stranger, though of the same blood. She came back, as indeed she had gone away, a sorrowful woman, for she had just parted from her youngest and dearest daughter, who was going, as was her duty, to Canada with her soldier husband. The acquaintance of Mrs Esselmont and the minister had commenced soon after the coming of Mr Hume--then little more than a lad--a "missioner" to Nethermuir. At the bedside of one whom the lady had long befriended, they met by chance--if one may so speak of a meeting which was the beginning of so much to them both. The poor woman in whom both were interested was drawing nigh to the end of all trouble, and these two did not meet again for years. The next meeting was in no sense by chance. In a time of great sorrow Mrs Esselmont came to the minister for help, because she remembered how his words, spoken in God's name, had brought peace to one who had sinned and suffered, and who was sore afraid as the end drew near. And that was the beginning of a lasting friendship between them. They had not met often during the last few years. Mrs Esselmont had lived much in England with her daughters, and had only once returned to her own house during the summer. Now she said she must look upon Firhill as her permanent home, and she did not speak very cheerfully when she said it. For though she was a good woman, she was not of a cheerful nature, and she had had many a trouble in the course of her life. Some of them had been troubles to which, at the time, it seemed wrong for her to submit, but which it was in vain, and worse than in vain, to resent. They were troubles which could only be ignored as far as the world was concerned, but which, she told herself, could never be forgotten or forgiven. They were all over now, buried in graves, forgiven and forgotten. But the scars were there still of wounds which had hurt sorely and healed slowly, and now she was looking sadly forward to a solitary old age. She had been long away, but Marjorie had not been allowed to forget her. Gifts and kind wishes had come often to the child from her friend, and her name had often been named in the household. But her coming was a shock to Marjorie. What she had imagined of the writer of the letters which she had heard read, and of the giver of the gifts which she had received, no one could say. But the first glimpse which she g
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