"Ye'll no leave yen wee laddie?"

"Ay, laddie, awa'--reet awa'. Ha's callin' me." She tried to smile;
but her mother's heart was near to bursting.

"Ye'll tak' yen wee Davie wi' ye mither!" the child pleaded,
crawling up toward her face.

The great tears rolled, unrestrained, down her wan cheeks, and
M'Adam, at the head of the bed, was sobbing openly.

"Eh, ma bairn, ma bairn, I'm sam to leave ye!" she cried brokenly.
"Lift him for me, Adam."

He placed the child in her arms; but she was too weak to hold him.
So he laid him upon his mother's pillows; and the boy wreathed his
soft arms about her neck and sobbed tempestuously.

And the two lay thus together.

Just before she died, Flora turned her head and whispered:

"Adam, ma man, ye'll ha' to be mither and father baith to the lad
noo"; and she looked at him with tender confidence in her dying
eyes.

"I wull! afore God as I stan' here I wull!" he declared passionately.
Then she died, and there was a look of ineffable peace upon her
face.