little Jamie was not there to see it gleaming on the cross. God had
remembered him.

Spring showers had made the small mound green, and scattered flowers
in the churchyard. Sister Bess sat in the silent room alone, working
still, but pausing often to wipe away the tears that fell upon a
letter on her knee.

Steps came springing up the narrow stairs and Walter entered with a
beaming face, to show the first rich earnings of his pen, and ask
her to rest from her long labor in the shelter of his love.

"Dear Bess, what troubles you? Let me share your sorrow and try to
lighten it," he cried with anxious tenderness, sitting beside her on
the little couch where Jamie fell asleep.

In the frank face smiling on her, the girl's innocent eyes read
nothing but the friendly interest of a brother, and remembering his
care and kindness, she forgot her womanly timidity in her great
longing for sympathy, and freely told him all.

Told him of the lover she left years ago to cling to Jamie, and how
this lover went across the sea hoping to increase his little fortune
that the helpless brother might be sheltered for love of her. How
misfortune followed him, and when she looked to welcome back a
prosperous man, there came a letter saying that all was lost and he
must begin the world anew and win a home to offer her before he
claimed the heart so faithful to him all these years.

"He writes so tenderly and bears his disappointment bravely for my