The first great sorrow of my married life was dear mother's death. She failed a little after Harold's birth, and, to my great grief, she never saw my baby boy, Geoffrey. A few months before he came into the world she sank peacefully and painlessly to rest. Fred came up to the funeral, and stayed with Allan; he had grown a long beard, and looked very manly and handsome. His pictures were never accepted by the hanging committee; and after a few years he grew tired of his desultory work, and thankfully accepted a post Giles had procured for him in the Colonies. After this he found his place in life, and settled down, and when we last heard from him he was on the eve of marriage with a Canadian girl. He sent us her photograph, and both Giles and I approved of the open, candid face and smiling brown eyes, and thought Fred had done well for himself. Allan was a long time making his choice; but at last it fell on our new vicar's daughter, Emily Sherbourne; for, three years after our marriage, Mr. Smedley had been attacked by sudden illness, which carried him off. How pleased I was when Allan told me that he and Emmie had settled it between them. She was such a sweet girl; not pretty, but with a lovable, gentle face, and she had such simple kindly manners, so different from the girls of the present day, who hide their good womanly hearts under such abrupt loud ways. Emily, or, as we always called her, Emmie, was not clever, but she suited Allan to a nicety. She was wonderfully amiable, and bore his little irritabilities with the most placid good humor; nothing put her out, and she believed in him with a credulity that amused Allan largely; but he was very proud of her, and they made the happiest couple in the world, with the exception of Giles and me. Carrie lost her lameness, after all; but not until she had been up to London and had undergone skillful treatment under the care of a very skillful physician. I shall always remember Dot's joy when she took her first walk without her crutches. She came down to the Cedars with Jack, now a fine well-grown girl, and I shall never forget her sweet April face of smiles and tears. "How good God has been to me, Essie," she whispered, as we sat together under the cedar tree, while Jack ran off for her usual romp with Winnie and Harold. "I have just had to lie quiet until I learned the lesson He wanted me to learn years ago, and now He is making me so happy, and giving me back my work." It was just so; Carrie had come out of her painful ordeal strengthened and disciplined, and fit to teach others. No longer the weak, dreamy girl who stretched out over-eager hands for the work God in His wise providence withheld from her, she had emerged from her enforced retirement a bright helpful woman, who carried about her a secret fund of joy, of which no earthly circumstances could deprive her.