"Teach her to fix her devotion upon our Master," said General Macdonald gravely. And Rowena tried to do it, but at present Mysie was not interested in religious talks. "You're good, and Dad is good, and Miss Panton is good, but you're all grown-up. I shall get like it one day, but not just yet," she would say. Then she would add hastily, "I do pray always when I get into a fix, and God hears me sometimes. But I can't be always thinking about heaven. I do love my dear earth so much; and as for the loch, I adore it, and if heaven has no lochs, I don't think I shall be happy there at all!" Rowena did not reprove her for such speeches, but she talked to her about having wider views and longer sight, and prayed continually for her. She heard very often from Mrs. Burke, and then, about a month after her marriage, she received the sad tidings by telegram that her old friend had passed away. The following letter from Mrs. Panton arrived later: "MY DEAR MRS. MACDONALD,—" "You will be grieved at the sad news. It was all so sudden, that even now I can hardly believe she has left us. Only last Thursday she was downstairs, wonderfully bright and most interested in the village school-treat which was going to take place in her grounds. On Friday she wrote letters all the morning, and in the afternoon we went for a drive. The girls were with us, and she insisted upon going to the sea and having tea at the little inn there. She seemed rather tired when we returned home, but came down to dinner as usual, and stayed in the drawing-room afterwards till ten o'clock, her usual time for going to bed. She talked to me of you, and, as she often did, lamented her wasted years. I remember her saying:" "'I am going to try to have some of my old friends down to stay with me. There are just a few who will come, I believe. I want to influence them as Rowena influenced me. I think it was her tremendous sympathy and love that was her power. I felt she never despised me even when I was at my worst. And gradually I came to despise myself and see what empty rubbish filled my life.'" "She talked of Di Dunstan, who has been over here pretty often lately and is going through a very miserable time. She said of her:" "'She is being emptied as I was, and I only hope she won't miss the right filling.'" "I saw her into her room, and her maid was with her till she went to bed. The next morning when her maid went to call her she found she had passed away in her sleep. The doctor says that her heart has been very weak ever since her illness, and that it failed suddenly." "I can only add that all of us are feeling her loss deeply. She has been so wonderfully good and generous to me and mine." "Yours most sincerely," "M. PANTON." Rowena felt this blow very much. She and the General both went to England to the funeral.