"It's been an awfu' happy time," said Jess. "We've ha'en a pleasantness in oor lives 'at comes to few. I ken naebody 'at's ha'en sae muckle happiness one wy or another."
"It's because ye're sae guid, mother," said Jamie.
"Na, Jamie, am no guid ava. It's because my fowk's been sae guid, you an' Hendry an' Leeby an' Joey when he was livin'. I've got a lot mair than my deserts."
"We'll juist look to meetin' next year again, mother. To think o' that keeps me up a' the winter."
"Ay, if it's the Lord's will, Jamie, but am gey dune noo, an' Hendry's fell worn too."
Jamie, the boy that he was, said, "Dinna speak like that, mother," and Jess again put her hand on his head.
"Fine I ken, Jamie," she said, "'at all my days on this earth, be they short or lang, I've you for a staff to lean on."
Ah, many years have gone since then, but if Jamie be living now he has still those words to swallow.
By and by Leeby went ben for the Bible, and put it into Hendry's hands. He slowly turned over the leaves to his favourite chapter, the fourteenth of John's Gospel. Always, on eventful occasions, did Hendry turn to the fourteenth of John.
"Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in Me.