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