The holidays, with their festivities, were over, and life had just settled
back into its every-day way, when Elizabeth Hill fell sick. She had never
been ailing before. Her children had always known her as able to take the
constant care and oversight of the family. Without her they were helpless
and distraught, for there was no one to take her place. And when after one
day's illness it became certain that her condition was critical, the
anxiety and tension became intense. He who should have lightened her burden
long ago now awoke to her need and was constantly by her side doing all
that was in his power to restore her to health. But the black cloud settled
heavier upon the home as each day saw the mother coming nearer the gates of
death. The children looked at one another with pale faces and wide,
frightened eyes as they saw the kind neighbor women come from their
mother's bed with averted faces.

Though all was done that could be done, they could not hold her, and one
night, with her weeping family around her, she loosed from her earthly
habitation and went away. She who had been the soul of that home, lay dead.
The calamity came upon the family like a shock. It left no spirit nor life
in them. They knew not which way to turn. From the father down to Baby
Doyle they were bereft. She to whom they had always looked for counsel and
guidance lay in a sublime sleep from which they could not waken her.

As Henry Hill looked upon the motionless form of the woman whose love and
confidence he had gained and who had been to him such a faithful wife in
spite of his fickleness, he wept, and vowed; but what are tears and vows
when the will has been weakened by self-indulgence? He looked about him
helplessly. What was he to do? What could he do without her? He was almost
a stranger to his children, and had no idea how to care for them. She had
always carried the burden, taken the oversight, been the one to go ahead.
He faced the future as helplessly as one of his little children.