At last in the late autumn, when Moss-Maggie was almost always in the graveyard, there came a time when, instead of barking cheerily, the dog howled by the hour together, so that my grandmother, herself very worn and weary by then, said, "You mark my words; there'll soon be somebody dying in our neighbourhood now, when the dog howls like that! God comfort the poor soul!"
And a little while after that Moss-Maggie fell ill, and when winter came she died.
In her last moments she held both my father and mother by the hand and uttered the words, "May God requite you a thousand and a thousandfold, right up into heaven itself!"
Footnotes:
[3] A morning service of the Catholic Church held during Advent.
In God's name let us arise
Towards God to go,
Towards God to take our way,
To the Heavenly Father to pray,
That He lend to us
Dear little angels three:
The first to guide us,
The second to feed us,
The third to shelter and protect us
That nothing mischance us in body or soul.
[5] The birchen Lizzie—Die birkene Liesel.