At such usefulness, I can fairly say, we laboured whole-heartedly from the hour when we took each other for better, and never a minute for worse, in the Castle of Corgarff, with Marget"s mother saying, "Children, you have all my poor old heart, to keep the fire of your young hearts warm."
She was a gracious lady, and she dwelt with us until we bore her to the little churchyard on the hill-side, where there is a clump of trees to break the cold sough of the winds into a lullaby. By that time another Marget, beautiful of face like the Forbeses, lithe of limb like the Gordons--we never could agree whom she most resembled!--had been given to us. She was our guerdon of the reverent gospel of home, which is the high altar of this world, the source and sanctuary of our well-being as men and women.
We have tried to live up to that ideal, and none can do more, unless, indeed, it be to seek the perfect heights of the Sermon on the Mount itself. It is good to look upward there, even if one cannot hope to reach the golden peaks of that world without an end--Amen!
THE END
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE ROMANCE OF A PRO-CONSUL
THE EPISTLES OF ATKINS
JOHN JONATHAN AND COMPANY
NEWS FROM SOMEWHERE
MY SUMMER IN LONDON
THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS