I did not half know what he meant. It seemed too dreadful to think of grannie dying. I never knew till then how much I loved her. I had a busy enough life the next week, what with nursing and work. I couldn't bear to leave grannie, yet mother expected me to do all that I commonly did and attend to grannie too. Our move had to be put off, of course, and mother was vexed. She did not believe that grannie was so bad as the doctor said. Father was very anxious, and he stayed a great deal at home, and often sat with grannie. But she did not know him or any of us. Things went on so up to Christmas Eve. And then there was just a little glimmer of sense. She seemed to look at me, and I heard her say, "Home! going Home!" "Perhaps not just yet, grannie," I said. But she smiled again, in a sort of eager way. She had pretty nearly lost the power of speech, yet she managed to say again, "Going Home—Home, Phœbe." And that was all. She looked peaceful, and we thought her better. Mr. Scott came to see her a little later, but she had dropped into a sleep, and from that sleep she never woke. Nobody could tell the moment when she died, she went so quietly. It was a sad Christmas for us all, and saddest of all, I think, for me; for I had been more her child than mother's, and she had taught me everything, and I seemed to feel as if I didn't know how to live without her. Father was miserable, for he had loved her dearly. It was only of late that he had ever said a sharp word to her, and I suppose those sharp words came back now and troubled him. And he had no real comfort like me; so after all he was the worst off. For I could think of grannie in her happy Home, with the Lord Jesus and the bright angels, singing songs to God; but father could only think about his own loss. He did not care to think about Heaven, and he only felt very wretched. And the day after grannie's death, he did what he had never never done before—stayed ever so long at the public-house drinking, and came back the worse for what he had taken. CHAPTER XII. AT LAST. THE day before the New Year grannie's body was laid to rest in the green churchyard. But grannie herself was not there. I used to think of how she was singing, away in her heavenly home, and that was the only comfort I had in my great sorrow. The next day we went into our other house, to begin our new life. And a new life indeed it was without grannie, much more new on that account than because we had a fresh roof over our heads. Father seemed greatly ashamed of himself, for having gone to the public-house that evening, and having been enticed to take too much. It did really seem for a little while as if grannie's death was to work good to him; for he would not go near the public-house, and he tried to keep out of the way of Mr. Simmons, and he attended Church quite regularly, like in old days.