And still the bell tolled on, calling up relentlessly sad memories of the long ago. It was on just such another dreary day, in just such another December, and not so many years gone by, that the light had gone forever out of his life. The whole picture rose as instant to his eyes as if it had been but yesterday. That insistent bell brought the scene surging back to him: the dismal day; the drizzle; the few mourners; little David decked out in black, his fair hair contrasting with his gloomy clothes, his face swollen with weeping; the Dale hushed, it seemed in death, save for the tolling of the bell; and his love had left him and gone to the happy land the hymn-books talk of. Red Wull, who had been watching him uneasily, now came up and shoved his muzzle into his master's hand. The cold touch brought the little man back to earth. He shook himself, turned wearily away from the window, and went to the door of the house. He stood there looking out; and all round him was the eternal drip, drip of the thaw. The wind lulled, and again the minute-bell tolled out clear and inexorable, resolute to recall what was and what had been. With a choking gasp the little man turned into the house, and ran up the stairs and into his room. He dropped on his knees beside the great chest in the corner, and unlocked the bottom drawer, the key turning noisily in its socket. In the drawer he searched with feverish fingers, and produced at length a little paper packet wrapped about with a stained yellow ribbon. It was the ribbon she had used to weave on Sundays into her soft hair. Inside the packet was a cheap, heart-shaped frame, and in it a photograph. Up there it was too dark to see. The little man ran down the stairs, Red Wull jostling him as he went, and hurried to the window in the kitchen. It was a sweet, laughing face that looked up at him from the frame, demure yet arch, shy yet roguish--a face to look at and a face to love. As he looked a wintry smile, wholly tender, half tearful, stole over the little man's face. “Lassie,” he whispered, and his voice was infinitely soft, “it's lang sin' I've daured look at ye. But it's no that ye're forgotten, dearie.” Then he covered his eyes with his hand as though he were blinded. “Dinna look at me sae, lass!” he cried, and fell on his knees, kissing the picture, hugging it to him and sobbing passionately. Red Wull came up and pushed his face compassionately into his master's; but the little man shoved him roughly away, and the dog retreated into a corner, abashed and reproachful. Memories swarmed back on the little man. It was more than a decade ago now, and yet he dared barely think of that last evening when she had lain so white and still in the little room above. “Pit the bairn on the bed, Adam man,” she had said in low tones. “I'll be gaein' in a wee while noo. It's the lang good-by to you--and him.”