In a short time, however, his health failed, and he was deprived
of this scanty pittance, being incapable, as the proprietor was
pleased to think, of fulfilling the duties of factor.

Alive to every call of duty, Mrs. Graham now considered her
father as added, with her children, to the number of dependents on her
industry. She proved indeed a good daughter--faithful, affectionate,
and dutiful, she supported her father through his declining years; and
he died at her house, Feb. 13, 1783, aged 75, during her residence in
Edinburgh, surrounded by his daughter and her children, who tenderly
watched him during his last illness.

Having resided two years at Cartside, she removed to Paisley in
1778, where she taught a small school. The slender profits of such an
establishment, with a widow's pension of sixteen pounds sterling, were
the means of subsistence for herself and her family. When she first
returned to Cartside a few religious friends called to welcome her
home. The gay and wealthy part of her former acquaintances, who, like
the butterfly, spread their silken wings only to bask in the warmth of
a summer sun, found not their way to the lonely cottage of an
afflicted widow. Her worth, though in after-life rendered splendid by
its own fruits, was at this time hidden, excepting to those whose
reflection and wisdom had taught them to discern it more in the faith
and submission of the soul, than in the selfish and extravagant
exhibitions of that wealth bestowed by the bounty of Providence, but
expended too often for the purposes of vanity and dissipation.

In such circumstances, the Christian character of Mrs. Graham was
strongly marked. Sensible that her heavenly Father saw it good, at
this time, to depress her outward condition, full of filial