“The hour of my departure’s come,
  I hear the voice that calls me home;
  At last, O Lord! let trouble cease,
  And let thy servant die in peace.”

They carried her fainting to her little bed, and uttered not a word to one another till she revived.  The shock was sudden, but not unexpected, and they knew now that the hand of death was upon her, although her eyes soon became brighter and brighter, they thought, than they had ever been before.  But forehead, cheeks, lips, neck, and breast, were, all as white, and, to the quivering hands that touched them, almost as cold, as snow.  Ineffable was the bliss in those radiant eyes; but the breath of words was frozen, and that hymn was almost her last farewell.  Some few words she spake, and named the hour and day she wished to be buried.  Her lips could then just faintly return the kiss, and no more—­a film came over the now dim blue of her eyes—­the father listened for her breath—­and then the mother took his place, and leaned her ear to the unbreathing mouth, long deluding herself with its lifelike smile; but a sudden darkness in the room, and a sudden stillness—­most dreadful both—­convinced their unbelieving hearts at last—­that it was death!

All the parish, it may be said, attended her funeral—­for none staid away from the kirk that Sabbath—­though many a voice was unable to join in the psalm.  The little grave was soon filled up, and you hardly knew that the turf had been disturbed beneath which she lay.  The afternoon service consisted but of a prayer—­for he who ministered, had loved her with love unspeakable—­and, though an old grey-haired man, all the time he prayed he wept.  In the sobbing kirk her parents were sitting, but no one looked at them—­and when the congregation rose to go, there they remained sitting—­and an hour afterwards, came out again into the open air—­and parting with their pastor at the gate, walked away to their hut, overshadowed with the blessing of a thousand prayers!

And did her parents, soon after she was buried, die of broken hearts, or pine away disconsolately to their graves?—­Think not that they, who were Christians indeed, could be guilty of such ingratitude.  “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away—­blessed be the name of the Lord!” were the first words they had spoken by that bedside; during many, many long years of weal or woe, duly every morning and night, these same blessed words did they utter when on their knees together in prayer—­and many a thousand times besides, when they were apart, she in her silent hut, and he on the hill—­neither of them unhappy in their solitude, though never again, perhaps, was his countenance so cheerful as of yore—­and though often suddenly amidst mirth or sunshine, her eyes were seen to overflow!  Happy had they been—­as we mortal beings ever can be happy—­during many pleasant years of wedded life before she had been born.  And happy were they—­on to the verge of old age—­after she had here ceased to be!  Their Bible had indeed been an idle book—­the Bible that belonged to “the Holy Child,”—­and idle all their kirk-goings with “the Holy Child,” through the Sabbath-calm—­had those intermediate seven years not left a power of bliss behind them triumphant over death and the grave!