With returning comfort Mrs Forsyth began to fail. Whether it was the effects of the lack of usual food, or the strain to help the family having been beyond her strength, signified little. With the coming of the snow she began to lose strength and, as her husband saw with deep sorrow, “to dwine awa.” She accepted her lot uncomplainingly, studying how to give least trouble, and spending her days between her bed and the easy chair by the fireside, generally knitting, for she said she hoped to leave them a pair of stockings apiece. The New Year had passed and the days were lengthening when it was plain her rest was near. It was a beautiful day when she asked that her chair be moved so that she could see out at the window. The brilliant sunlight fell on the snow that shrouded the winding course of the Chateaugay and flecked the trees, while a blue haze hung in the distance that prophesied of coming spring. “A bonnie day,” she remarked. “Ay,” replied Maggie, “warm enough to be a sugar day.” “It’s ower fine to last and there will be storms and hard frost afore the trees can be tapped,” said Mrs Forsyth, “an’ I’ll no be here to help.” “Dinna say that, mither; the spring weather will bring you round.” “Na, na, my bairn. The robin’s lilt will no wauken me, nor will my een again see the swelling bud, but through the mercy o’ my God I trust they will be lookin’ on the everlasting spring o’ the bidin’ place o’ his people.” “Oh, mither: I canna bear the thocht o’ parting wi’ you.” “It’s natural to feel sae; my ain heart-strings were wrung when my mither deed, an’ yet I see noo it was for the best. I have become a cumberer o’ the grund, unable to labor even for an hour a day in the vineyard, and sae the Maister o’t is goin’ to gie me the rest o’ which, lang since, I got frae His hand the arles. Ae thing ye maun promise me, Maggie, and that is ye maun never leev your faither.” “What makes you think sae o’ me, mother? I hav’na even a thocht o’ leevin’ him.” “I ken ye hav’na a thocht the noo o’ sic a thing, but the day will come when you micht--when your love for anither would incline you to forget your duty. Sweet the drawing o’ heart to heart in the spring o’ youth, an’ the upspringing, when you least expec’ it, o’ the flow’r o’ love. The peety is, sae mony are content with the flow’r an’ pu’ it an’ let the stem wither. Your faither an’ I werna o’ that mind. The flow’r grew into a bauld stalk in the simmer o’ affection, an’ noo we reap the harvest. It’s no like Scotch folk to open their mous on sic maitters, but I may tell you, my lassie, that sweet an’ warm as was oor love when your faither cam a coortin’, it’s nae mair to be compared to oor love since syne an’ to this minute, than the licht o’ lightnin’ is to the sunshine. I thocht to hae tended him in his last days, to hae closed his een, an’ placed the last kiss on his cauld lips, but it’s no to be, an’ ye maun promise me to perform what your mither wad hae dune had she lived.”