The spring advanced into summer, and on one of its calm and bright
evenings, Margaret, exerting her little strength, took William to the
grave-yard, and both seated themselves on the little green hillock
beneath which George Raymond awaited in peace the resurrection from
the dust. No costly monuments nor storied urns were in that simple
grave-yard. Some plain marble tablets marked the resting-places of the
dead; but there were memorials of deeper meaning and more lovely.
Trees waved their branches protectingly over the little mounds; kind
hands had planted them with flowers and kept them sacred. Thus it was
a pleasant spot, and full of hallowed remembrances. Margaret had never
spoken of her coming death to her son; but now, seated on the spot of
earth which must ere long be opened to afford a resting-place for
herself, she told him that soon, in a few weeks most likely, he would
be an orphan indeed, alone in the world, and with no friend but God.

How can the sorrow and astonishment of the poor boy be described?
Motherless and fatherless! what a deep and painful impression did the
words of that truly pious mother make upon him! He had dearly loved
his father, but the exertion he had at once made to help to support
his mother had prevented his viewing that great loss in all its
magnitude; but now, to lose her on whom, since his father's death, he
had hung his whole heart, was an idea so terrible that he could
scarcely comprehend it.

"Mother," he exclaimed, as he threw his arms around her and sobbed
wildly, "you will not die! surely you will not! I cannot live without
you; I shall have no home,--nobody to love when you are gone."

Poor Margaret, controlling her own emotion, tried to comfort her
weeping child, and at last succeeded; for strength from above was