not (this agony still returns to me in dreams, when I catch myself playing marbles, and look on with cold displeasure); I felt that I must continue playing in secret, and I took this shadow to her, when she told me her own experience, which convinced us both that we were very like each other inside.  She had discovered that work is the best fun after all, and I learned it in time, but have my lapses, and so had she.

I know what was her favourite costume when she was at the age that they make heroines of: it was a pale blue with a pale blue bonnet, the white ribbons of which tied aggravatingly beneath the chin, and when questioned about this garb she never admitted that she looked pretty in it, but she did say, with blushes too, that blue was her colour, and then she might smile, as at some memory, and begin to tell us about a man who—but it ended there with another smile which was longer in departing.  She never said, indeed she denied strenuously, that she had led the men a dance, but again the smile returned, and came between us and full belief.  Yes, she had her little vanities; when she got the Mizpah ring she did carry that finger in such a way that the most reluctant must see.  She was very particular about her gloves, and hid her boots so that no other should put them on, and then she forgot their hiding-place, and had suspicions of the one who found them.  A good way of enraging her was to say that her last year’s bonnet would do for this year without alteration, or that it would defy the face of clay to count the number of her shawls.  In one of my books there is a mother who is setting off with her son for the town to which he had been called as minister, and she pauses on the threshold to ask him anxiously if he thinks her bonnet ‘sets’ her.  A reviewer said she acted thus, not because she cared how she looked, but for the sake of her son.  This, I remember, amused my mother very much.

I have seen many weary on-dings of snow, but the one I seem to recollect best occurred nearly twenty years before I was born.  It was at the time of my mother’s marriage to one who proved a most loving as he was always a well-loved husband, a man I am very proud to be able to call my father.  I know not for how many days the snow had been falling, but a day came when the people lost heart and would make no more gullies through it, and by next morning to do so was impossible, they could not fling the snow high enough.  Its back was against every door when Sunday came, and none ventured out save a valiant few, who buffeted their way into my mother’s home to discuss her predicament, for unless she was ‘cried’ in the church that day she might not be married for another week, and how could she be cried with the minister a field away and the church buried to the waist?  For hours they talked, and at last some men started for the church, which was several hundred yards distant.  Three of them found a window, and forcing a passage through it, cried the pair, and that is how it came about that my father and mother were married on the first of March.

That would be the end, I suppose, if it were a story, but to my mother it was only another beginning, and not the last.  I see her bending over the cradle of her first-born, college for him already in her eye (and my father not less ambitious), and anon it is a girl who is in the cradle, and then another girl—already a tragic figure to those who know the end.  I wonder if any instinct told my mother that the great day of her life was when she bore this child; what I am sure of is that from the first the child followed her with the most wistful eyes and saw how she needed help and longed to rise and give it.  For of physical strength my mother had never very much; it was her spirit that got through the work, and in those days she was often so ill that the sand rained on the doctor’s window, and men ran to and fro with leeches, and ‘she is in life, we can say no more’ was the information for those who came knocking at the door.  ‘I am sorrow to say,’ her father writes in an old letter now before me, ‘that Margaret is in a state that she was never so bad before in this world.  Till Wednesday night she was in as poor a condition as you could think of to be alive.  However, after bleeding, leeching, etc., the Dr. says this morning that he is better hoped now, but at present we can say no more but only she is alive and in the hands of Him in whose hands all our lives are.  I can give you no adequate view of what my feelings are, indeed they are a burden too heavy for me and I cannot describe them.  I look on my right and left hand and find no comfort, and if it were not for the rock that is higher than I my spirit would utterly fall, but blessed be His name who can comfort those that are cast down.  O for more faith in His supporting grace in this hour of trial.’

Then she is ‘on the mend,’ she may ‘thole thro’’ if they take great care of her, ‘which we will be forward to do.’  The fourth child dies when but a few weeks old, and the next at two years.  She was her grandfather’s companion, and thus he wrote of her death, this stern, self-educated Auld Licht with the chapped hands:—

‘I hope you received my last in which I spoke of Dear little Lydia being unwell.  Now with deep sorrow I must tell you that yesterday I assisted in laying her dear remains in the lonely grave.  She died at 7 o’clock on Wednesday evening, I suppose by the time you had got the letter.  The Dr. did not think it was croup till late on Tuesday night, and all that Medical aid could prescribe was done, but the Dr. had no hope after he saw that the croup was confirmed, and hard indeed would the heart have been that would not have melted at seeing what the dear little creature suffered all Wednesday until the feeble frame was quite worn out.  She was quite sensible till within 2 hours of her death, and then she sunk quite low till the vital spark fled, and all medicine that she got she took with the greatest readiness, as if apprehensive they would make her well.  I cannot well describe my feelings on the occasion.  I thought that the fountain-head of my tears had now been dried up, but I have been mistaken, for I must confess that the briny rivulets descended fast on my furrowed cheeks, she was such a winning Child, and had such a regard for me and always came and told me all her little things, and as she was now speaking, some of her little prattle was very taking, and the lively images of these things intrude themselves more into my mind than they should do, but there is allowance for moderate grief on such occasions.  But when I am telling you of my own grief and sorrow, I know not what to say of the bereaved Mother, she hath not met with anything in this world before that hath gone so near the quick with her.  She had no handling of the last one as she was not able at the time, for she only had her once in her arms, and her affections had not time to be so fairly entwined around her.  I am much afraid that she will not soon if ever get over this trial.  Although she was weakly before, yet she was pretty well recovered, but this hath not only affected her mind, but her body is so much affected that she is not well able to sit so long as her bed is making and hath scarcely tasted meat [i.e. food] since Monday night, and till some time is elapsed we cannot say how she may be.  There is none that is not a Parent themselves that can fully sympathise with one in such a state.  David is much affected also, but it is not so well known on him, and the younger branches of the family are affected but it will be only momentary.  But alas in all this vast ado, there is only the sorrow of the world which worketh death.  O how gladdening would it be if we were in as great bitterness for sin as for the loss of a first-born.  O how unfitted persons or families is for trials who knows not the divine art of casting all their cares upon the Lord, and what multitudes are there that when earthly comforts is taken away,