As Margaret hung over her mother's pillow, the false woman, as if to
confirm the assertion she had made, leaned forward and said, "Robin
told you, I suppose? I sent him to do so."

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."