Selina crept as far as the window, and looked out on the bare pines and the other dreary trees. Most trees are dreary in November. Francis saw a shiver take her as she stood, leaning on the window-frame; and he went to give her his arm and bring her back again. They were by themselves then. "A week, or so, of this improvement, mother, and you will be as you used to be," said he cheerfully, seating her on the sofa and stirring up the fire. "We shall have our home together yet." She turned her face full on his, as he sat down by her; a half-questioning, half-wondering look in her eyes. "Not in this world, Francis. Surely _you_ are not deceived!" and his over-sanguine heart went down like lead. "It is but the flickering of the spirit before it finally quits the weary frame; just as you may have seen the flame shoot up from an expiring candle," she continued. "The end is very near now." A spasm of pain rose in his throat. She took his hands between her own feeble ones. "Don't grieve, Francis; don't grieve for me! Remember what my life has been." He did remember it. He remembered also the answer Duffham gave when he had inquired what malady it was his mother was dying of. "A broken heart." "Don't forget, Francis--never forget--that it is a journey we must enter on, sooner or later." "An uncertain and unknown journey at the best!" he said. "You have no fear of it?" "Fear! No, but I had once." She spoke the words in a low, sweet tone, and pointed with a smile to the book that still lay open on the table. Francis's eyes fell on the page. "When death is drawing near, And thy heart shrinks with fear, And thy limbs fail, Then raise thy hands and pray To Him who cheers the way Through the dark vale. "Seest thou the eastern dawn? Hears't thou, in the red morn, The angel's song? Oh! lift thy drooping head, Thou who in gloom and dread Hast lain so long. "Death comes to set thee free; Oh! meet him cheerily, As thy true friend; And all thy fears shall cease, And in eternal peace Thy penance end." Francis sat very still, struggling a little with that lump in his throat. She leaned forward, and let her head rest upon him, just as she had done the other day when he first came in. His emotion broke loose then. "Oh, mother, what shall I do without you?" "You will have God," she whispered. Still all the morning she kept up well; talking of this and that, saying how much of late the verses, just quoted, had floated in her mind and become a reality to her; showing Holt a slit that had appeared in the table-cover and needed darning: telling Francis his pocket-handkerchiefs looked yellow and should be bleached. It might have been thought she was only going out to tea at Church Dykely, instead of entering on the other journey she had told of.