His head drooped on her shoulder the news fell on him like a horrible blow, and, stunned as he was with weariness and anxiety, all sense and life flowed from him for a time. The necessity for action and the consolation of others are God's blessed remedies to lull, during the first intolerable moments, the poignancy of bereavement. Mrs Home had to soothe her children, and to see that they took needful food and rest; and she watched by the bedside of her younger boys till the silken swathe of a soft boyish sleep fell on their eyes, red and swollen with many tears. Then she saw Violet to bed, and at last sat down alone with her eldest son, who by a great prayerful effort aroused himself at last to a sense of his position. He took her hand in his, and said in a low whisper, "Mother, let me see him?" "Not now, dearest Julian; wait till to-morrow, for our sakes." "What was the cause of death, mother?" "Disease of the heart;" and once more the widow's strength seemed likely to give way. But this time it was Julian's turn to whisper, "God's will be done." Next morning Mrs Home, with Julian and Violet, entered the room of death. Flowers were scattered on the bed, and on that face, calm as marble yet soft as life, the happy wondering smile had not yet even died away. And there Julian received from his mother a slip of paper, on which his father's dying hand had traced the last messages of undying love and when they had left him there alone, he opened and read these words, written with weak and wavering pen-- "My own dearest boy, in this world we shall never meet again. But I die happy, Julian, for my trust is in God, who cares for the widow and the fatherless. And you, Julian, will take my place with Violet, Cyril, and dear Frankie--I need say nothing of a mother to such a son. God bless you, my own boy. Be brave, and honest, and pure, and God will be with you. Your dying father, "Henry Home." The last part was almost illegible, but Julian bent reverently over his father's corpse, and it seemed that the smile brightened on those dead lips as he bowed his young head in prayer. Reader, for many reasons we must not linger there. But I had to tell you of that death and of those dying words which Julian knew by heart through life, and which he kept always with him as the amulet against temptation. He never forgot them; and oh! how often in the hours of trial did it seem as if that dying message was whispered in his ear, "Be brave, and honest, and pure, and God will be with you."