brance of Bethel or Peniel must
have come to Jacob in his after-wanderings, and her strength is renewed.
For there _she_ met God face to face. There she was _smitten_, and
there the same hand healed her. There she tasted the sweetness of the
cup of bitterness which God puts to the lips of those of his children
who humbly and willingly, through grace which he gives, drink it to the
dregs. The memory of that room and the western window is like the
memory of the stone which the prophet set up--"The stone of help."

"I will trust, and not be afraid."

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort
me."

The words seem to come again from the dear dying lips; and as they were
surely his to trust to, to lean on when nought else could avail, so in
all times of trouble Shenac knows that they are most surely hers.

But much sorrow came before the joy. March passed, and April, and
May-day came, warm and bright this year again; and for the first time
for many weeks Hamish went out-of-doors. He did not go far; just down
to the creek, now flowing full again, to sit a little in the sunshine,
with a plaid about his shoulders and another under his feet. It was
pleasant to feel the wind in his face. All the sights and sounds of
spring were pleasant to him--the gurgle of the water, the purple tinge
on the woods, the fields growing fair with a tender green.

Allister left the plough in the furrow, and came striding down the long
field, just to say it was good to see him there. Dan shouted, "Well
done, Hamish, lad!" in the distance; and little Flora risked being too
late for the school, in her eagerness to gather a bunch of spring
flowers for him. As for Shenac, she was altogether triumphant. There
was no cloud of care darkening the brightness of her loving eyes, no
fear from the past or for the future resting on her face. Looking at
her, and at his fair little sister tying up her treasures for him,
Hamish for a moment longed--oh, so earnestly!--to live, for their sakes.

Hidden away among Flora's most precious treasures is a faded bunch of
spring-flowers, tied with a thread broken from the fringe of the plaid
on which her brother sat that day; and looking at them now, she knows
that when Hamish took them from her hand, and kissed and blessed her
with loving looks, it was with the thought in his heart of the long
parting drawing ne