him, though you canna trace him;’ he says, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.’ You saw that he was with your father and Moggie, yet they died, but He was with them as the life of their spirit, and now they are with Him for ever.” The child, soothed by her voice and warmed by her embrace, ere long fell asleep in her arms; and thus Margaret passed the dreaded night. She would not move for fear of breaking the deep, sound sleep; but the presence of her God was with her, and none of the terrors of darkness were suffered to approach her. The morning dawn showed Margaret her other children stretched on their mattress as usual; but the grey cat, their constant companion had disappeared. Stiff and weary, the mother laid herself down by them and fell asleep; and the day was far advanced when she again opened her eyes on the scene of so much suffering. The fever had not attacked the others; and the boys who had had it, were recovering, though so weak that without nourishment as they were, it was plain they could not long survive. The baby seldom unclosed its eyes, it lay and slumbered either on its mother’s lap, or on a bundle of rags in a corner of the room. The rest had become too weak to cry, too faint to talk, and except when the chapter was read, and the prayer arose, or when Margaret repeated aloud some promise from God’s Word to support the hearts of her little ones, silence reigned in the cottage. Exhaustion produced drowsiness, and quieted the pangs of hunger. The hope of procuring food had almost deserted her; the only dwelling within two miles, was a solitary cabin, whose tenants were little likely to be better provided than herself; and Margaret felt that she had now only to wait in patience, till He who hath the keys of death, should open the portals of the shadowy valley and lead them all through it, to the mansions prepared for them above. Her own strength was wonderful; it could not be natural strength, for that had been drained by her infant, and by long abstinence and painful watching; it was the strength of woman’s devotedness, upheld by faith in the Word of God.