when
her sons were scattered in many lands, they remembered as "the sweetest
ever heard." The father sang too, but among the many good gifts which
God had given to him, music had been denied. He did not know one tune
from another, except as it might be associated with some particular
Psalm or Hymn, and his voice, both powerful and flexible in speaking,
had in singing only two unvarying tones. But he was never silent when
the time came "to sing praises," and truly his voice did not spoil the
music to those who loved him. The boys had their mother's gift and they
all sang with good will to-night. Allie's voice was mute, but her lips
trembled a little, and her head drooped low as they sang--

"God of our fathers be the God
Of their succeeding race."

She was not forgotten in the prayer which followed. It was not as "the
stranger within our gates" that she was remembered, but as one of the
household, and it was reverently asked that the casting in of her lot
with theirs might be for good to her and to them for all time and beyond
it. But there was no brightening of her face when she rose and passed
out from among them.

The minister's sermon was not his first thought when he returned to the
parlour, after carrying his little daughter up-stairs. By and by his
wife sat down with her stocking-basket by her side. They had many
things to speak about, after a ten days' separation, which had not
occurred more than twice before in all their married life, and soon they
came round to their new servant.

"Well, what do you think of her?" said the minister.

"I cannot say. I cannot quite make her out," said Mrs Hume gravely.

"You have not had much time yet."

"No; I mean that I do not think she intends that I should make her out."

"She says little?"

"She says nothing. She has passed through some sore trouble, I am quite
sure. She looks, at times, as if she had lost all that she cared for,
and had not the heart to begin again."

"I think you have made her out fairly well," said the minister smiling.

"Why was Dr Fleming so anxious to send her here? Had he known her
long? And how did he come to know her?"

"He had not known her very long. This is the way he came to know her:
She was brought to the infirmary, ill of fever. She had gone into a
cottage on the outskirts of the town `to rest herself,' she said. But
she was too ill to leave the place, and then she was sent to the
infirmary. She had a st