Presently the weak voice began again. "To you, Audrey, I have given my pearl brooch, and the ring your grandfather gave me as my engagement-ring. You will value it, will you not, dear? I wish you not to wear the ring until you are eighteen. I was just eighteen when he gave it to me. To Faith I am giving my ruby cross and brooch--Faith with her warm heart glowing with kindness towards the world, always reminds me of rubies. Tom is to have his grandfather's watch and chain, and Debby is to have mine. To Baby I have given my string of pearls." Her voice had grown more and more feeble, and now for a moment died away. But very soon she spoke again. It was as though she felt she had not much time, and could not waste a moment of it. "To you, dear, I leave my work-table, too; you loved it so when you were very little. Do you remember?" Audrey smiled as the memory came back to her of the joy with which she had turned it out, and dusted and rearranged it daily. But her smile changed to tears. "Granny, granny, you must get well, and use it again yourself. There is your work in it now, waiting to be finished." A little flicker of pain passed over granny's face. "I shall never finish it now," she whispered. "Whenever the end comes, one leaves many things undone. Some do not matter so very much. It is the thought of the things that do matter--neglected--those we might have helped, that stab one to the heart." With a deep sigh she turned her face on her pillow. Audrey, kneeling beside her, holding her hand, presently laid it gently down, thinking that she had gone to sleep, and, stepping softly to a chair by the window, sat down to wait for her to wake and speak again. Over in the park the children were playing gaily; the elder folk were already seated on the seats with books or newspaper, or sewing. How familiar it all was, how dear! Minute after minute passed, while Audrey, with her eyes fixed on the distant hills, turned over and over in her mind those last words her grandmother had spoken. How they rang in her ears, as warning bells! By and by the nurse came in. "Granny is having such a lovely sleep," said Audrey happily. But the nurse, already at the bedside, did not return her smile. Her eyes were on the face on the pillow, her hand on the frail hand lying where Audrey had laid it down. "She is," she said at last, very softly--"She was. She has had such a beautiful wakening, dear. She has passed through the Valley of Shadows, and is safe on the other side." CHAPTER XVI. A year had passed since Granny Carlyle went to her rest and Audrey returned to the Vicarage to take up her duties there again. Another summer has come and gone, for it is September now, but a September so warm and sunny and beautiful that, if it were not for the changing tints on the trees, one might well imagine it was still June.