And now I have done with my story. It has given me a melancholy pleasure to write it. I think I shall not hope too much if I hope that all who read it may learn from it that when God suffers his children to be afflicted, he aye upholds them and gives them grace sufficient for their needs.
Sequel: by Christie Somerville
CHAPTER XIV. THE PEN IN ANOTHER HAND.
Having come in possession of Effie Patterson's manuscript, which the reader has just been perusing in print, I, Christie Somerville, her grand-niece, deem that it would not be amiss to add something thereunto.
It is with profound respect that I call to remembrance my most worthy relative, who was a member of my father's family from my earliest recollections, and who died at an advanced age while I was still young. But I recollect her perfectly well, and I remember many things that she told me; for, like all aged persons, she loved to rehearse the events of her earlier years. Listening to her, I learned much of the history of that sad time when the spirit of persecution desolated Scotland and bereft us of so many of our kindred. I have also gathered from the conversation of my parents much of the story of her life, so that the contents of her manuscript are not entirely new to me; but they are none the less dear because of their familiarity. She lost the spirit of sadness apparent in her manuscript, and during the last years of her life she was cheerful, and always ready to encourage the desponding and assure them from her own experience that the Lord would bring them out of all their troubles, according to his promise. My parents held her in great veneration; and, remembering all she had suffered—her bereavements, her toils, her loneliness, and her noble endurance—they did all that they could to make her last days pleasant to her. She beguiled the years of old age with reading, and she took a lively interest in the current events of her time. I well remember her remark when we heard that King George I. had died in his carriage while travelling in Germany. "I have outlived seven sovereigns," said she. "It can scarcely be God's will that I should outlive another." And she did not. Death approached her very softly, and she passed away as gently and as peacefully as she had desired.
She has told her story, and I thought it might be well to take it up where she left it, and trace the dealings of God's providence with us, her kinsfolk of later generations.