patted his cheek, and kissed his face. And she crooned over him as
mother with little child. The years were quite forgot. She had her
little son again. And she talked mother's love-talk to a child.
"Good-night, Laddie ... good-night ... good-night ... mother's own boy."
And a little more tucking and smoothing and patting and kissing, and
then she turned so quietly, picked up the candle, and went out, closing
the door so softly, her great strength revealed in her gentleness.

And he was just on the point of starting up and saying, "Mother, you
must stay with me, right here"--no, the morning will do, he thought. But
when the morning came she wasn't down for breakfast. And when he went to
her room she wasn't there. It turned out afterwards that she had said to
herself, "It doesn't suit my Laddie's plans to have me here. I don't
understand why. It isn't his fault at all. It just doesn't suit. And
I'll never be a trouble to my Laddie."

And so with that rare characteristic English trait of independence, she
had quietly gone off early that morning before the house was astir. And
he broken-hearted--I'm always glad to remember that--he searched through
the wilderness of London for more than a year, searched diligently, but
could find no trace of her. And then he was graciously permitted to
minister to her last hours in a hospital where a street accident had
sent her unconscious, and where he was chief of the medical staff.

_She came to her own and her own received her not._ He loved her, but it
didn't suit his plans. _He, Jesus_, came to _His_ own, and His own
received Him not; it didn't suit their plans. Ah! listen yet further: He
_comes_ to His own, you and me, and His own--_you_ finish it. Have we
some plans, too, set plans, that we don't propose to change, even
for--(softly) even for _Him_? Each of us is finishing that sentence, not