They gathered about her with glad, loving looks and words, each eager to anticipate her wishes and to be the first to wait upon her. "My dear children," she said, smiling through glistening tears, "your love is very sweet to me!" "And what do you think yours is to us, mamma?" exclaimed Violet, kneeling at her mother's feet and clasping her arms about her waist, while she lifted to hers a face glowing with ardent affection and admiration. "Just the same, I hope and believe;" and with the words the mother's hand passed caressingly over the golden curls. "Mamma, you have been crying very much," remarked Harold sorrowfully. "I wish--" "Well, my son?" as he paused, leaving his sentence unfinished. "I wish I could make you so happy that you would never want to shed a tear." "When I get to heaven, my dear boy, it will be so with me. 'God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.' And that is where your dear papa is now. Oh how glad we ought to be for him!" she said with mingled smiles and tears. "'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord:' but oh, it is not so, my children, with those who have not chosen him for their portion! 'for to them is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.'" There was a slight solemn pause, all thinking of the wretched man who had passed away from earth that afternoon. "Mamma," asked Harold at last, speaking in a subdued tone, "do you think it is so with Mr. Boyd?" "My son," she said gently, "that is a question we are not called upon to decide; we can only leave him in the hands of God, in full confidence that the Judge of all the earth will do right." "Mamma, would you like to tell us about it?" asked Herbert. "It is a painful subject," she sighed, "but--yes, I will tell you, that it may be a warning to you all your lives." They listened with awe-struck faces, and with tears of pity, as she went on to give a graphic picture of that death scene so different from the one they had witnessed a few short months ago. "Oh my children," she said, "live not for time, but for eternity! remembering that this life is but a preparation for another and endless existence. 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.' 'Count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord.' Choose his service now while youth and health are yours, and when death comes you will have nothing to fear. 'The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death.' 'Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption: but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.'"