e, and now repeated habitually without a meaning.

They could not follow her into the valley of the shadow of death, but
could only watch the frail earthly prison-house being broken down, as if
the doom of sin must be borne, though faith could trust that it was but
her full share in the Cross. Calmly did those days pass. Ethel, Richard,
and Mary divided between them the watching and the household cares,
and their father bore up bravely in the fullness of his love and faith,
resigning her daughter to the Hands which were bearing her whither her
joys had long since departed.

Hector Ernescliffe arrived when the holidays began; and his agony of
sorrow, when she failed to recognise him, moved Dr. May to exert himself
earnestly for his consolation; and, at the same time, Tom, in a gentle,
almost humble manner, paid a sort of daughter-like attention to the
smallest services for his father, as if already accepting him as his
especial charge.

It was midnight, on the longest night of the year; Ethel was lying on
her bed, and had fallen into a brief slumber, when her father's low,
clear voice summoned her: "Ethel, she is going!"

There was a change on the face, and the breath came in labouring gasps.
Richard lifted her head, and her eyes once more opened; she smiled once
more.

"Papa!" she said, "dear papa!"

He threw himself on his knees beside her, but she looked beyond him,
"Mamma! Alan! oh, there they are! More! more!" and, as though the
unspeakable dawned on her, she gasped for utterance, then looked, with
a consoling smile, on her father. "Over now!" she said--and the last
struggle was ended. That which Richard laid down was no longer Margaret
May.

Over now! The twenty-five years' life, the seven years' captivity on her
couch, the anxious headship of the motherless household, the hopeless
betrothal, the long suspense, the efforts for resignation, the widowed
affections, the slow decay, the tardy, painful death agony--all was
over; nothing left, save what they had rendered the undying spirit, and
the impress her example had left on those around her.

The long continuance of the last suffering had softened the actual
parting; and it was with thankfulness for the cessation of her pain that
they turned away, and bade each other good-night.

Ethel would not have believed that her first wakening to the knowledge
that Margaret was gone could have been more fraught with relief than
with misery. And, for her father, it