Margaret nodded assent, while a deeper gloom fell upon the brow of Mr. Hamilton, who stood with folded arms watching the advance of the great destroyer.  It came at last, and though no perceptible change heralded its approach, there was one fearful spasm, one long-drawn sigh, a striving of the eye for one more glimpse of the loved ones gathered near, and then Mrs. Hamilton was dead.  On the bosom of Mrs. Carter her life was breathed away, and when all was over that lady laid gently down her burden, carefully adjusted the tumbled covering, and then stepping to the window, looked out, while the stricken group deplored their loss.

Long and bitterly over their dead they wept, but not on one of that weeping band fell the bolt so crushingly as upon Willie, the youngest of the flock, the child four summers old, who had ever lived in the light of his mother’s love.  They had told him she would die, but he understood them not, for never before had he looked on death; and now, when to his childish words of love his mother made no answer, most piteously rang out the infantile cry, “Mother, oh, my mother, who’ll be my mother now?”

Caressingly, a small, white hand was laid on Willie’s yellow curls, but ere the words of love were spoken Margaret took the little fellow in her arms, and whispered through her tears, “I’ll be your mother, darling.”

Willie brushed the tear-drops from his sister’s cheek and laying his fair, round face upon her neck, said, “And who’ll be Maggie’s mother?  Mrs. Carter?”

“Never! never!” answered Mag, while to the glance of hatred and defiance cast upon her she returned one equally scornful and determined.

Soon from the village there came words of sympathy and offers of assistance; but Mrs. Carter could do everything, and in her blandest tones she declined the services of the neighbors, refusing even to admit them into the presence of Margaret and Carrie, who, she said were so much exhausted as to be unable to bear the fresh burst of grief which the sight of an old friend would surely produce.  So the neighbors went home, and as the world will ever do, descanted upon the probable result of Mrs. Carter’s labors at the homestead.  Thus, ere Ernest Hamilton had been three days a widower, many in fancy had wedded him to Mrs. Carter, saying that nowhere could he find so good a mother for his children.

And truly she did seem to be indispensable in that house of mourning.  ’Twas she who saw that everything was done, quietly and in order; ’twas she who so neatly arranged the muslin shroud; ’twas her arms that supported the half-fainting Carrie when first her eye rested on her mother, coffined for the grave; ’twas she who whispered words of comfort to the desolate husband; and she, too, it was, who, on the night when Walter was expected home, kindly sat up until past midnight to receive him!

She had read Mag’s letter, and by being first to welcome the young man home, she hoped to remove from his mind any prejudice which he might feel for her, and by her bland smiles and gentle words to lure him into the belief that she was perfect, and Margaret uncharitable.  Partially she succeeded, too, for when next morning Mag expressed a desire that Mrs. Carter would go home, he replied, “I think you judge her wrongfully; she seems to be a most amiable, kind-hearted woman.”