It is true in the moral world as in the material that after a storm comes a calm. The agony of suspense, the wild burst of passionate sorrow had swept over them, and the morning succeeding the sad discovery found mother and daughter composed and resigned. The worst was now known, a worst there was no remedying, and so they bowed, without needless fret or repining, beneath the trial. The sun had risen in an unclouded sky and his beams were warmer than on the preceding days, and as they came pouring down unstintingly on the turbid waters of the creek and the uplifted branches of the forest, it seemed as if summer was nigh and buds and leaves and green sward would speedily succeed the birds whose noisy concert ushered in the rosy dawn. Everything had been arranged in the humble shanty with all the deftness of order-loving hands; on one side of it, beneath a white cloth, was the corpse. Mrs Morison was seated on the chair at the window; Jeanie sat at her feet on the doorstep. “Wasna father a braw man when you first foregathered?” “He was the handsomest lad in the countryside; a very pleasure for the ee to rest on. Little dae they ken what he was like that didna see him then, and a kinder or truer heart couldna be. O, Jeanie, I just worshipped him when we were lad and lass.” “But your father didna like him?” “Dinna put it that way, Jeanie. He liked him but he saw a faut in him that spoiled a’. I was wilfu. I said Willie would gie up the company he keepit when he was merrit, and that it was guid-fellowship and no love o’ the drink that enticed him. I dinna say that I regret what I did, or that my lot hasna been as guid as I deserved--God forgive me that I should repine or say an unkindly word o’ him that lies there--but young folks dinna lippen to their parents in choosing partners as they ocht.” “Hoots, mother; when a lad or lass hae found their heart’s love, what for suld father or mother interfere?” “Easy said, Jeanie, but think ye there is ony body in the wide world loes son or dochter as a parent does? They are as the apple o’ their ee, and his or her happiness is all they seek. Dootless there are warld’s worms o’ parents who only look to the suitor’s gear and wad break off the truest love-match that ever was gin he were puir. I dinna speak o’ them, for they are out o’ the question. But take parents by ordinar, who only seek their bairns’ welfare, and the son or dochter wha disregards their advice in choosing a life-mate will hae mickle to repent o’.” “I dinna see hoo that is,” said Jeanie, “for surely their marriage concerns only themselves?”