Children of Cloverley

On the other side of the vast Atlantic Ocean, whose countless waves stretch three times a thousand miles between the coasts of our country and the shores of the New World, there lives a great nation, speaking the same language and reading the selfsame Bible as the people of England. Only a narrow strait of sea, which we can look across, separates our native land from France; but if we sailed over that we should find ourselves at once surrounded by people whose speech we could not understand, and whose books we could not read: and so strangely would sound the words they spoke, that we should feel sorrowfully that we were in a foreign country and among strangers. So, though they are so far away, our nearest brethren, and the place where we could feel most at home because we could understand the language, are on the other side of the great Atlantic Ocean in the vast lands of North America, which we could only reach by a long voyage.

There are very few families in England that have not some relation, or friend, or at least an acquaintance, who used to live in the same town or village, who has emigrated across the sea to the United States of North America, or to Canada, the country lying higher towards the north. Perhaps not a single day in the whole year passes by without at least one ship putting out to sea from some English port, and finding its way over the trackless ocean almost as well as if there were landmarks to guide it, sails on by day and by night until it reaches some town on the American coast; while from the American harbours other vessels, laden with many kinds of merchandise, start away for our little island, which, like a small but powerful magnet, attracts all manner of trade and wealth to its busy towns. These ships, crossing and re-crossing day after day upon the Atlantic Ocean, carry to and fro men and women belonging to both countries, who are, and ought to be, bound together by very fast ties of love and friendship; for so many of the American people belong to us by reason of so many families here having sent out one or more of their children to try their fortunes in those newer and larger countries, that the two nations are like brothers. They belong to us, and we belong to them. If every letter which passes over the ocean from us to them and from them to us --loving letters from parents to children and from sisters to brothers, -- if each one of them could weave only one little thread as filmy and weak as the gossamer and spider spins in the summer air, they would altogether form a cable so mighty and strong that no power on earth could break it.

About the time that our story begins a terrible war bad been raging for nearly three years among the nation who inhabit the United States. The great cause of this war was the question whether the people living in the Southern and warmer States, where cotton, and tobacco, and sugar were cultivated, should buy and sell negroes to do their work, or should be compelled by the people dwelling in the Northern States to set their slaves free. It was a very difficult question to settle; and at length the Southerners determined to make a separate country and nation of their own, quite independent of the other. But the people of the North would not permit them to do this; and so North and South went to war, and fought fiercely for a time against each other, perhaps with the greater anger and bitterness because they were so closely related to each other. A few months before they were living as we live in England -- buying and selling, making railways from place to place, visiting one another, worshipping God after the same manner, and dwelling in peace and brotherhood throughout the whole land. Then there suddenly broke out this terrible civil war, which had been smouldering for a long time like a slow fire hidden among embers; and from one end to another of the United States the people were filled with bitter anger against their brothers, and began to look upon them as enemies.

Both in the North and South great armies were raised to fight their battles; and many men who had been living peacefully at home were called upon to leave their families and lands, and go out to the war as soldiers for their country. Among these men in the Northern army there was a Captain Bakewell, whose home was a small farmhouse upon the shores of Lake Huron, where he had lived for many years in quietness and safety, almost from the time when he had emigrated from England in his youth. Not long after the outbreak of the war he had been obliged to leave his farm and his two children in the care of his wife; parting from them all with much anxiety and sorrow, though he went out with a willing heart; for he was a brave and hardy man, and he thought the cause of the war a just one.

The farm on Lake Huron was far away from any town; far away also from any school or place of worship. Only a few farmers lived round about, and their homes were scattered so far apart that Mrs. Bakewell and her children rarely saw any strangers, or conversed with any one out of their own household. It would have been almost a dreary life in its solitude, except that now and then the father came home, bringing stirring accounts of the war; but he could not long be spared from his post, and his visits could only be in the winter, when for a short interval the contending armies were agreed to rest.

Like all her neighbours, it was necessary for Elinor Bakewell to be very active and diligent herself in seeing after the affairs of her husband's farm; and as there was scarcely any help to be had in that distant part of the country, both Ben and Annie, her two children, were obliged to work well with their own hands in order to be useful to her. There were few tasks upon the farm, not requiring a man's strength, which Ben could not manage, from milking the cows and guiding the plough, to chopping wood for the house fires; while within doors Annie could work, as her mother said, like a little woman. The children did not think their life hard; but sometimes the mother would ponder anxiously in her mind about their education, and would long for the opportunity of getting some good instruction for them; but she was far away from any school, and she could not bear the thought of sending them away from her while her husband was absent. The small farmhouse on the shores of Lake Huron would be desolate indeed without Ben and Annie. Besides, every month she expected the war to come to an end, and then Captain Bakewell would come home and decide what was to be done with his boy and girl.

In the meantime, she taught them carefully all that it was in her power to teach, taking especial care that they should learn to read well; so that to hear the children reading in their clear, sweet, natural young voices, as if they fully understood every word, was a greater pleasure than to listen to the careless rattling upon a piano of many young ladies who have wasted several years upon their music. Yet, as often as Ben rode over to the distant post office, and brought home a letter from Mrs. Bakewell's brother in England, and she heard of the learning and accomplishments of his children, she always sighed sorrowfully over her own Ben and Annie, and often shed bitter tears when they were not near to notice them. As for the children, they were never weary of listening to the grand accounts of their cousins in Old England; and many a long conversation had they upon the shores of the lake, and in the deep green glades of the great wood which bounded the farm, concerning Gilbert and Dora, and their home among the beautiful hills of Cloverley, which their mother had so often described to them.

There were as few books in the loghouse as there was little leisure time for reading them; but there was one large picture Bible, which had been an unfailing treasury of interest to Ben and Annie ever since they could first remember it. It had this peculiarity, that a great number of the pictures were of those events and scenes in the Bible history in which angels have taken a part; and so often did they come upon the lovely and tender faces of these heavenly spirits, with their snow-white robes and glistening wings, that the children, while they were little ones, were used to call the picture Bible the 'angel-book;' and for hours together during the quiet Sundays, as there was no church nor chapel near enough for them to attend, Annie nestled in her mother's lap and Ben sat at her feet, while she read over and over again the familiar stories of the visits of angels to this world of ours. Besides this, over the hearth of the little parlour beyond the kitchen there hung a beautiful painting, the work of their uncle Ludlow at Cloverley, which represented a cluster of the faces of angel children, so sweet, and innocent, and happy, that Annie would stand and look up at them until her eyes grew dim with tears. Sometimes Mrs. Bakewell would fancy that her little girl's face had caught the pure and heavenly expression of those angel-children; and many a solitary hour in the night, after the children were in bed, she pondered over Annie's simple talk about heaven and the angels, as if it was a home, and they were companions dearer to her even than her father's house upon Lake Huron.

Mrs. Bakewell need not have suffered as she did from the secret dread which often weighed upon her heart, that God would call upon her to give up her beloved child to the home in heaven and the companionship of the angels. It was the will of her heavenly Father that she should leave Ben and Annie motherless in this wide and busy world, and herself enter into His rest. She felt no dread of appearing in the presence of God, for she knew that the death of His Son Jesus Christ had atoned for her sins and reconciled her to the Father; but the bitterness of death lay in her separation from her children, and her spirit had to pass through a very sore and bitter conflict before she could give them up, and say truly, 'Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven!' When that last trial and agony were over, she entered into a joy and peace such as she had never known before; and, committing Ben and Annie to the loving-kindness and tender care of their Father in heaven, she passed away into the eternal world, calmly and consciously, with her husband and children beside her, listening awe-stricken, but not terrified, to her farewell words of love.

It was nearly the close of the year when Elinor Bakewell died, and Captain Bakewell was at home upon a long furlough, the army having gone into winter quarters. During the dreary season of mid-winter he could still take care of his motherless children, and see after the business of his farm; but as soon as the spring began to return, he must expect to receive any day the order to return to his perilous post amidst the continuous dangers of a battlefield. It was not to be wondered at that white lines began to streak his dark hair, and deep traces of anxiety were marked upon his face, as he marched about his frost-bound fields, or paced along the shores of the great lake, with his head bent down, and his broad shoulders stooping as if with the heavy burden of grief and care that had fallen upon him. During the long dark nights, while the northern winds wailed round his solitary loghouse, Captain Bakewell would sit in the wide chimneycorner, sighing often as he gazed sorrowfully into the wood fire, whose bright flames danced and flickered cheerily until they lit up the farthest corner of the house place, and shone upon the faces of the children. The fireplace was built back in a large recess, in the front of which a thick beam of timber, almost black with smoke, stretched from one side to the other; and upon this during the winter nights Ben had been busily at work, under Annie's oversight, carving in deep letters that could never be filled up or effaced by time a motto which the children had chosen for themselves. Sometimes, as the work went slowly on, one deeply-carved letter often taking two or three evenings for its completion, Captain Bakewell's face brightened with a faint smile, and his lips moved as if whispering the whole sentence to himself. It was finished at last; and above the hearth of the old home there stretched from end to end, in letters that would outlast the lives of the young engravers, this motto: 'THE WILL OF THE LORD BE DONE.'

'Father,' said Annie, when Ben had carved the last deep line of the final letter, 'we have finished our verse. I have done a little of it with my own hands, for Ben said I should think more of it if I had worked at it myself. Father, isn't it beautiful?'

Captain Bakewell looked up at the beam, where the fresh letters showed plainly upon the blackened surface of the wood; and then he glanced down at the eager face of his little girl, and, taking it between his hands, he gazed, as if he could never be satisfied with seeing, upon the sweet and tender light that shone in her eyes as she looked up to him.

'Oh, my darling!' he cried; 'and my boy, my Ben! -- how can I ever part with you? I may never, never see you again. It will break my heart.'

It was a pitiful sight to see the brave and strong-hearted soldier, who had faced death a hundred times without fear, hide his face upon his child's shoulders, and give way to such a passion of weeping as shook all his frame with agitation. Annie laid her hands tenderly upon his thick grey hair, while Ben clasped his arms about him.

'Why do you cry, father?' whispered Annie, her own voice trembling with sobs. 'Was it not God's will that our mother should die? And so we chose that verse to comfort you. Is it no comfort to you, father?'

'Ay, my dear ones,' answered Captain Bakewell, raising his head, and looking fondly at his children, 'it ought to comfort me; but it is a hard thing to learn to say those words from the heart. Ben, my boy, if our general ordered me and my men to march up into the very teeth of the rebels' guns, though we knew beforehand one half of us would fall, what should we be bound to do?'

'To obey!' cried Ben, his brown face flushing, and his eyes sparkling through the tears of which he was half ashamed; 'even if you were sure you would be shot down the next moment. Father, you would be a coward and a traitor if you did not obey.'

'Ay!' replied his father, sighing; 'to fail in obedience makes one a coward and a traitor. Ben, the order is come for me to give up my son, my only son, and my little daughter, as the command came to Abraham of old. If Abraham had chosen, I suppose he might have withheld his son Isaac from God; but then he would have proved himself a rebel instead of God's faithful servant and friend. My boy, it is harder to obey the will of God at times than it would be to march up to the mouth of a loaded cannon. But we are cowards and traitors if we fail; if we do not say, like the Captain of our salvation, "Nevertheless, not what I will, but what Thou wilt!"'

Captain Bakewell was silent for some minutes, holding Annie closely to him, and watching Ben's face as the light from the blazing logs shone upon it. The boy looked grave and thoughtful, and his eyes lost something of their brightness as he met his father's steady and sorrowful gaze. The sound of the waves upon the shore came into this quiet room with a continuous moaning, and the wind wailed through the crevices of the log walls. But there was no word spoken, until Annie's clear, low voice stole upon the silence in a quiet undertone.

'Father,' she said, 'the very last time I ever read my Bible to our mother, she showed me this verse, "Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother." We should have chosen that verse for our motto, only it was too long; and this one seemed like it. And our mother said that Ben and I might become the little brother and sister of the Lord Jesus, if we tried wherever we went to do the will of our Father in heaven; and then she showed me that other verse, where it says that Jesus is not ashamed to call us brethren. Not ashamed,' she said, 'even when He comes in His own glory, and of the Father, and of the holy angels. And she told me that a little girl like me could obey God as well as the glorious archangel Gabriel, who stands in His presence. I could not do such great things, you know; but if I would give up my own will, the little things God gives me to do might be done just the same as the angel's service. And she made me think how every morning and night I say in my prayers, "Our Father which art in heaven. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." And she told me it is because God is our Father, and has sent His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to bring us back to Him, that it is possible for us to do His will as the angels do it. If we are frightened at Him, we cannot do His will at all; and if we do not care for Him, and don't wish to be made good and holy like the Lord Jesus, we shall never try to do it. My mother said many other things, but oh, I forget them! Father, I feel as if I was almost forgetting my mother's face!'

Annie spoke steadily and bravely till she came to these last words, but then her heart failed her, and she hid her face upon her father's breast. It was some time before any one spoke again.

'Ben,' said Captain Bakewell at last, 'are you trying to be the brother of the Lord Jesus?'

'I am afraid not,' answered Ben, lowering his eyes before his father's tender but searching gaze.

'My boy,' continued Captain Bakewell, 'if I felt sure that you were a son of the heavenly Father; a brother of whom the Lord Jesus Himself will not be ashamed; a young faithful soldier fighting manfully under Christ's banner, -- I could part with you more readily. How long, Ben, will you be a rebel soldier, and a truant child?'

Ben's face wore an expression of solemn thoughtfulness, and he stood speechless, with his eyes fixed upon the ground, and the colour in his brown cheeks growing paler, as if with some inward struggle; but after a long deliberation he looked up brightly into his father's face.

'I'm going to try,' he said; 'mother has taught us over and over again how we may become the children of God. I'll try. I'll be His soldier and servant. I'll try to do His will like the angels; and when I'm like to forget it, our motto will make me remember. I could never sit down by the fire here without seeing it.'

'Yes, my boy,' answered his father, 'but you will have to leave the old hearthstone. I said that to-day I had received the order to part with my children. When I rode over to the post office this morning I found a letter from your uncle Ludlow, in England, who is willing to take the charge of you both, to be educated with Dora and Gilbert. It was your mother's last wish that it should be so; for you could not be left here alone, and the perils of the war are many. My darlings, I should be a better and braver soldier if I were sure you were safe among good friends, who would care for you, whatever befell me. Yet it is a hard and bitter trial to send you over the sea, so far away from me.'

'Father,' cried Ben, as Captain Bakewell's face sank again upon Annie's brown curls, 'let us stay here. I am almost fourteen, -- Annie is turned eleven; it isn't as if we were children! Why, in a year or two I shall be a man.'

'Nay, Ben,' answered the father, smiling sadly; 'you're a good way from manhood yet, my boy; and I dare not run the risk of leaving you orphans. "The will of the Lord be done." Your uncle Ludlow sends word that a ship leaves New York in ten days from this date, and he will be in Liverpool to meet it upon your arrival there. It removes a load of anxiety from my mind; for by that time I must be ordered back to my post. I've let the farm to our neighbour Harris, and everything is settled. But some day, Ben, you will come back to it as your own.'

There was no time after that evening for Captain Bakewell to saunter along the shore, holding Annie's hand, and listening to the ceaseless moaning of the waters; for there was a multitude of things to be arranged, both for himself and for his children. For the next few days they were all hard at work, packing up such of the old treasures and possessions as they could not bear to part with altogether. The picture Bible and the painting of angel-faces were to go with the children's luggage to England. But there was the mother's rocking-chair of maple wood, which Ben had once painted a bright red, with mouldings of yellow, to her great amazement and dismay; and the mother's large writing-desk, made by Captain Bakewell himself, at which she had been writing -- her thin white hand moving slowly over the paper -- only a day or two before her death; and mother's spinning-wheel, which had sung and hummed many a long winter's night by the fireside, while she spun the flax for Annie's clothes and the wool for Ben's jackets and trousers. They could not part with these treasured possessions; and they were all carefully packed up in cases and entrusted to the friendly neighbours who were to become tenants of the farmhouse, until, as Captain Bakewell said, with a heavy sigh from his soldier's heart, he had a home again for himself and his children. Besides all this, there was the packing up of the luggage which was to cross the great ocean with Ben and Annie. Many a token of their mother's love and forethought met them in their mournful task. There were clothes for each one of them, spun and made with her own hands, which would keep both Captain Bakewell and the children free from any need of assistance for several years to come. Many were the tears that fell upon them from Annie's eyes as she folded them up with loving hands, and laid them neatly in the large sea-chests which their father had provided for their safe keeping in the hold of the ship.

All the preparations were finished in time; and Captain Bakewell, with his two children, quitted the old house upon the shores of Lake Huron, where Ben and Annie had been born, and travelled across the country to the great and bustling city of New York. The order had come for Captain Bakewell to rejoin the army in a very few days; and he felt thankful that he was permitted to see his dear children safely started to England, under the care of the captain of the ship, who was to take charge of them until their uncle Ludlow should meet them in Liverpool, on the other side of the vast Atlantic Ocean.

It was a melancholy journey to New York for Captain Bakewell and his children; and when they found themselves in the noise and tumult of the busy streets, it seemed impossible that it could be true. But there was no time to spare; and early in the morning after their arrival they drove down to the wharf from whence the vessel was to sail. The deck was thronged with passengers and their friends who were come to see them off; and Ben kept back the tears that were stinging and smarting under his eyelids. Annie's face was very pale, but patient in its sorrowful look; and whenever she caught her father's eye, she smiled faintly, and pressed close to his side. Captain Bakewell threaded his way through the bustling crowd to the little cabin which the doctor of the ship had consented to share with Ben; and there, in the midst of the strange sounds and the hurrying footsteps, which echoed noisily through the thin wooden partitions, he felt that it was even a more sorrowful parting than when he sat in the stillness of his own quiet home, with his Elinor's cold hand resting in his, and her eyes closing into the sleep of death.

'My boy:' he said, looking earnestly into Ben's face, 'it may be the will of God that I should never see you or my little Annie in this life again. Remember, I commit her to your care, that you may always love and cherish her as a true and tender-hearted brother. Think of what the Lord Jesus would be when He was a boy like you, and in everything act towards Annie as He would have acted towards a little sister. I cannot give you any better direction than that. Bear in mind, Ben, the verse which says, "That servant which knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes." Oh, my boy, you know the commandments and the will of God; take heed that you do not disobey them.'

'I will not, father,' answered Ben, lifting up his head, with a look of resolution upon his face.

'Tell me what I must do,' whispered Annie, clinging to her father's arm.

Captain Bakewell stroked her curls fondly with his large hand, and looked down at her face until the tears came into his eyes.

'My darling,' he said, 'it seems to me as if you had been trying to do the will of God all your little life. But you may forget, or you may grow tired. There are many temptations lying in the way before you. Out yonder in England, among strangers, there will be many new and unknown snares laid for my little girl's feet; and what will she do to escape out of them?'

'Father,' she answered, a smile lightening up her face 'Ben and I are not going out alone. We shall have the same heavenly Father in England, and the same Lord Jesus. And won't the same angels go with us to take care of us? We shall not be altogether among strangers. I could not bear to leave you and home at all if I did not believe that.'

'It is true,' said Captain Bakewell, 'but I was forgetting it. I have been fretting my spirit with the thought of my tender little Annie and my boy being sent among those who know nothing of their former lives. I was afraid of the strange home and the strange companions for you. But the Father will be with you, and He will give His angels charge concerning you. I will trust you to Him.'

The ringing of the bell to give warning that all the visitors must prepare to leave the vessel, prevented Captain Bakewell from saying any more to his children. He had only time to clasp them in his arms, and hold them to his heart for a minute or two, while he uttered a prayer that God would keep them and him in safety, and restore them to each other whenever and wherever He should see best; and then they were obliged to hurry on to the deck. There was a great confusion of parting among the crowd; but in a few minutes the gangway was drawn aside, and Captain Bakewell stood by himself upon the wharf watching the departing vessel; while Ben and Annie, hand in hand, turned their tearful eyes to the spot where their father lingered gazing mournfully after them, until they lost sight of him in the increasing distance.

A bitter sense of loneliness smote upon the hearts of Ben and Annie. All the years that they could remember they had dwelt peacefully in the solitary farmhouse upon the lonely shore of the lake; but they had never felt alone there, though no strangers came, and the neighbours visited them but rarely. Not once in twelve months had they looked into a stranger's face, or heard a stranger's voice. But now they were torn away from all that was home-like and familiar, and set down alone upon the deck of a ship, in the midst of a crowd of people whose faces were unknown, and whose voices had a foreign sound. Behind them the shores of their native land were fading from their sight, and the boundless sea began to stretch around them as far as their straining eyes could see. They remembered their mother's grave, in a far-off spot, where they had laid her in the early winter; and they thought of their father, who was already on his way to rejoin the army, which was about to enter again into the dangerous war. These lay behind them; and before them there was a new home, of which they seemed to know nothing, though they had so often talked together of Cloverley and their cousins, who lived in the heart of its valley, shut in amidst the green hills, which their mother had described to them over and over again. Everything was strange, and full of sorrow. Ben glanced round the littered decks, where the sailors were still busy with lowering the passengers' luggage into the deep hold, and at the faces of the strangers who stared coldly or curiously upon the children standing apart; and, laying his head upon the gunwale, a deep sob, deeper because he had kept it down so long, burst from his lips, and fell upon Annie's ear. In a moment he felt her arm stealing round his neck, and her sweet, low voice whispering softly to him.

'Ben,' she said, 'don't you remember how God told Abraham to get out of his own country, and from his kindred, and from his father's house; and he went out, not knowing where he was going to? We are better off than that; we know where we are going -- to our mother's brother, who is sure to be very kind to us. And we have one another, Ben: if one of us had to go quite alone, it would be much harder. But you know Joseph was stolen away from his father and his little brother Benjamin, and sold to be a slave. And there was the little maid who had been taken captive, and waited on Naaman's wife, all alone, with none of her own people with her. We are better off than Abraham, and Joseph, and the little maid, Ben.'

Annie could say no more, but she laid her cheek against Ben's, and he felt that it was wet with tears. The sailors, who were passing to and fro, looked pityingly at the lonely children; and the passengers noticed them standing by the gunwale, with their arms round each other, and their sad faces still turned towards the land they had quitted, though it was almost lost upon the distant horizon. But for awhile nobody spoke to them, or ventured to break upon the deep and quiet grief which kept them motionless and silent.

'Oh, Annie,' cried Ben at last, drawing her close to his side, 'I wish we could both have died with mother!'

Annie did not answer for some minutes, but she looked steadily into Ben's mournful face, until her own grew more peaceful in its expression, and the tender light returned into her clear eyes. 'I said so once to our mother,' she answered, 'and she showed me how Jonah was very angry against God's will, and said, "It is better for me to die than to live." But it was only because God was not doing what he wished, and had taken away his gourd. Mother said that people oftener wished to die because they could not have all their own way in the world, than because they wanted to be with Christ, which is far better than being here. And she said that we were never, never to wish to die just to escape out of trouble, or get out of doing the work God has sent us to do. Oh, Ben, perhaps we have a great deal of work to do in England, even before we come home again to America.'

'Annie,' muttered Ben, 'it is very hard.'

'What is very hard?' she asked softly.

'I shouldn't mind how much I had to do,' he answered. 'I'd read my Bible, and say prayers, and hear sermons every day; and I'd work at any business like a man; or I'd go a long journey, or do anything that one could do. But I can't make out how I am to have no will of my own, and be quite satisfied with everything that happens, and take every trouble, and be tossed to and fro without grumbling, like you do. Don't you think we could have served God quite as well at home as out yonder in England among strangers? I don't like going to live with Uncle Ludlow, and Gilbert, and Dora. They are fine folks, I guess; and maybe they will look down on us, and be ashamed of us, though the children of Captain Bakewell, and American citizens, are as good as they are any day. But they have done nothing but learn all their lives, and we have done nothing but work.'

Half ashamed of himself, Ben spread out his rough hands, which had grown large and coarse with hewing wood and holding the plough; and he took Annie's little hands in his, hard and brown like his own with the work of the house; and he looked at both with an air of discontent spreading over his face, while Annie smiled until the smile deepened into a little laugh.

'Oh, foolish Ben!' she said; 'we have only been doing the work God gave us to do. Did not our Lord Jesus work with His hands? Dora and Gilbert know that, and they will not love us the less for it. They are not strangers, but our own cousins; and I am glad we are going to them.'

Ben could not answer, for the tossing of the ship in the open sea made him feel very ill. It proved to be a miserable voyage to him, for he suffered from sea-sickness all the way across; and many hundreds of times, in his impatience and restlessness, he repeated in his own heart the wish that he might die, and so escape the present suffering of mind and body. With Annie it was different; she was not ill at all, and she grew in favour with the ship's crew and her fellow-voyagers by her helpful and womanly ways, and by the patience with which she met every discomfort and inconvenience. Through all the long and wearisome voyage -- for the winds were contrary to them, and the ship did not reach England for several days after its time -- Annie went about doing little acts of kindness, and speaking gentle and pleasant words, until her own sorrow was lessened, and the roughest seaman on board loved to hear her voice and see the quiet smile upon her face.

The fresh bloom and health of Ben's brown face was a good deal faded, and his hands were thinner and whiter, before the vessel reached England; but he was no better satisfied with himself or his appearance, and his thoughts were constantly dwelling upon his unknown and dreaded cousins, and their opinion of him and Annie. When the ship sailed into the smooth waters of the river Mersey at Liverpool, he crept languidly on to the deck, leaning on Annie's arm. Everybody on board was looking eagerly towards the town which they were approaching; but it seemed to Ben as if no one could pass Annie without kissing her or lingering near her, as if unwilling to part for ever with the little voyager. Even the sailors found time, every one of them, to come and bid her good-bye, taking her small hand in their large and horny palms as if it were some precious and fragile thing which they were almost afraid to touch, however gently. It was early in the morning; for they had anchored outside the bar the night before, and crossed it with the morning tide as soon as the water was deep enough to carry the ship over the hidden sand-banks. The blue sky overhead was cloudless, and the busy vessels were passing up and down the broad river with their sails unfurled to the breeze, and glistening like white wings in the sunshine, The tedious voyage was ended; and though the hearts of the children beat anxiously while they looked for their uncle among the crowd which awaited their arrival at the landing-stage, they felt, as they stood once more side by side leaning against the gunwale, a courage and hope which had well-nigh forsaken them as they lost sight of the coasts of America.

Of all the valleys among the hills of England, there is none more lovely and more pleasant than the valley of Church Cloverley. It runs from north to south between the ridges of a group of mountains, over which the sun rises after a very long grey light of dawn in the morning, and sets below the opposite heights early in the evening, leaving a soft and shadowy twilight to linger fondly upon the cool slopes of the mountain-sides. Here and there the valley widens into a broader space, large enough to contain a few corn-fields or rich meadow-land, surrounded by hedgerows of hawthorn, with wide-spreading beech trees and thick-leaved sycamores. Through the whole length of the valley there stretches an old high road, once thronged with coaches and carriages; but, since the opening of the railway, so quiet and deserted that the youngest child can be trusted to play along its track, or go from cottage to cottage on busy little errands. About midway through the valley lies the village of Church Cloverley, nestling among the enclosing hills, which rise round it like sheltering walls, as if to guard it from the world, which can only creep in to disturb its peace by the two roads branching north and south, and by the by-paths over the mountains. About a mile on each side of the village there stands a little hamlet, like outposts to a camp; the southern one called Little Cloverley, and the northern one All Cloverley, consisting of a few pleasant dwellings, surrounded by thatched cottages, and separated from Church Cloverley by green fields and the spurs of the hills, which here and there jut out upon the road, and make it wind round them in many turns and curves. The eastern hills consist of separate and distinct elevations, standing apart, yet near to one another; but on the west there is one long range forming a large table-land at the top, with small vales and glens, beginning almost unseen in the very heart of the hills, and running steeply down into the valley, along which, both summer and winter, there fall clear little mountain brooks, rippling and singing over their rocky courses, and gleaming like lines of silver, until they reach the valley, and flow away in broad but shallow streams through the open country towards the river, whose current they help to swell. So narrow are some of these sidelong glens, that the boys, who go bird-nesting among the gorse bushes upon opposite hills, can talk readily across the deep ravine, though they are far away from one another if they measure the steep slopes between them; and the shepherds can hear the bleating of the lambs which have strayed from their own sheep-walks, though it will need a tedious and toilsome journey to fetch them back again to the flock. Among the eastern hills, and in the centre of the whole group of mountains, there rises the great Helmeth, rearing its head up proudly above the others, and looking, as it is, the king of the hills, with regal robes of golden-coloured gorse, and with a crown of time-worn rocks upon its brow; and round about its foot a belt of stern, sentinel-like fir trees, separating it from the meadows which lie under its shadow, and guarding it from the rude trespass of the cattle pastured in them.

Not half a mile from the belted foot of Helmeth lies the little hamlet of All Cloverley, with its two large dwellings, Helmeth Lodge and Cloverley Old Hall, and its farmhouses and cottages, set about with gardens and orchards. Helmeth Lodge is a sunny house facing south, and built with three pointed gables in front, with projecting eaves, and ornamental woodwork about each gable, where the swallows make their nests, in the firm conviction that they were intended for their accommodation alone; and all the summer months they skim to and fro about the roof with shrill cries of delight and joyousness. A little lower down the walls, which are covered with climbing rose-trees and Virginian creepers, the quiet fly-catchers and whistling black-caps hide their nests among the leaves, and wage war upon the butterflies and moths which flutter about in the bright sunshine, or fly with soft wings in the dusky evening. Everywhere about the garden at Helmeth Lodge, in the thick forests of the raspberry bushes, and in the branches of the fruit trees, and in the closely-grown hedgerows, lie concealed the homes of numberless innocent creatures, all beautiful in their kind, which are left unmolested by the inmates of the house; even by the children, who look upon the birds, and the timid field-mice, and the bolder squirrels that visit the walnut trees, as creatures to be loved and cared for. Many a time, if you stood for a few minutes under the hedge which divides the garden from the fields, you might hear the clear ringing voice of Dora or Gilbert singing these words among the chanting of the birds:

'He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small:
For the great God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.'

In the summer-time the house-door at Helmeth Lodge almost always stands open, and through it can be caught a glimpse of many pictures, which hang upon the walls of the entrance-hall and the staircase. Every wall in the house is adorned with them, even to the nursery and the bedrooms of the children; while in a room upon the topmost storey, under one of the gables, where the swallows tap with their dusky wings against the casement many times a day, there is such a collection of pictures, half-finished, or just begun, or only waiting for a few more touches to give the last and greatest beauty to them, that a stranger would know at once that the person who lived in that house was an artist, and that all his time was spent in painting those beautiful pictures.

It was about fifteen years before the time at which this story begins that Helmeth Lodge, with its pleasant garden, became the home of the artist Mr. Ludlow, upon his marriage with the niece of the old man who had built it Old Mr. Wyley had lived at the northern entrance to the valley of Church Cloverley, at a place called Botfield, where he possessed a small coal-field, lying many miles away from the greater coal-pits in the same county, so that the inhabitants of the valley were almost entirely dependent upon him for their supply of fuel before the railway brought it to them as cheaply. He had gathered together a good deal of money by his coal-pit; and part of it he had spent in building Helmeth Lodge, with the intention of quitting his old dwelling amid the dust and smoke of his work, and of coming to live at All Cloverley for the remainder of his life. But in the midst of his money-getting and hard dealings with his fellow-men, while he was thinking only of how he should increase his riches, and his own enjoyment of them, his soul was required of him, and he was compelled to leave his unfinished house, and to give up his shrewd schemes for heaping together more wealth. In his last will it was found that he had bequeathed the greatest part of his possessions, including Helmeth Lodge and the coal-fields at the entrance of the valley, to his niece, who had been living with him at Botfield Hall; and it had been agreed upon by her and Mr. Ludlow, at the time of their marriage, that instead of going away to London, or any other large city, they would fix their home among the beautiful hills of Cloverley, where they would be near to their people who worked for them in the dark and dreary chambers of the coal-pit.

The lives of Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow had been like the life of every other being in this world, mingled gladness and sorrow. Often they had been very happy in their peaceful home; but now and then their hearts had been well-nigh broken with deep grief. They had had several children; and their first-born son and daughter were growing up, the very pride and delight of their lives, and a little child, three years of age, played about the old nursery. But in the grassy churchyard at Church Cloverley, amid the solemn yew trees, and in the shadow of the belfry from which the bells echoed along the valley to call the people to the Sabbath worship of God, there lay three tiny graves, little larger than the molehills in the meadows; and every Sunday morning, as Mrs. Ludlow followed Dora and Gilbert along the narrow churchyard path, her footsteps lingered and fell softer, as week after week she looked upon the names of her lost children, and upon a verse which had been engraved underneath them, some months after the stone had been placed at the head of the little graves. It had been chosen by her husband's sister, Elinor Bakewell, who lived far away in America, upon the shores of Lake Huron; and whenever Mrs. Ludlow read it, she bowed her head, and passed on peacefully into the cool and dim aisles of the old church, saying in her secret heart, 'If this cup may not pass from me except I drink it, Thy will be done.'

The vessel which had carried Ben and Annie safely across the Atlantic Ocean entered the port of Liverpool, and the decks were again crowded by the rejoicing passengers, and strewn from stem to stern with their luggage. The great iron-bound sea-chest which contained the children's clothing, and such treasured relics as could not be left behind in America, was hoisted up out of the deep hold, and immediately claimed by Ben, who put Annie to sit upon it, and surrounded her with all the smaller boxes which they had had with them in their cabins during the voyage. Ben felt that it was necessary for him to display the activity and forethought of a man; and the spirit of the young American rose high as the occasion called it forth. Leaving Annie in safety amidst their possessions, he strode to and fro through the crowd which thronged the deck upon their arrival at the landing-stage, in search after his unknown uncle, whistling 'Hail Columbia!' and now and then addressing some stranger with the inquiry if he were Mr. Ludlow, of Church Cloverley. But no one answered to the name; and as the captain had gone on shore immediately after the ship's arrival in port, he could obtain neither information nor advice from him. It was some effort for Ben, weak and faint as he felt after his long illness, to return to the place where Annie sat amidst the luggage, with a smile upon his face and words of encouragement upon his lips. The little girl sat still, with the look of patience and quietness in her blue eyes which might always be seen there when she could do nothing for herself, but must wait until help came; and as Ben's spirit began to fail, and he stood weariedly beside her, gazing at the departing passengers and the gradual clearing of the deck, one of their fellow-passengers drew near to them. The help Annie was looking for was come.

'Why, Annie!' he said; 'what, here yet? I thought you expected your uncle to meet you. Have you seen nothing of him?'

'No,' answered Annie, her lips quivering for an instant; 'I'm afraid there is some mistake; and the captain is gone on shore. Nobody is come for us; and we don't know any one else in England. But this is my brother Ben; and I daresay we shall manage somehow.'

'Nothing easier!' said their friend cheerfully as he glanced at Ben's pale and gloomy face and Annie's trembling lips; 'I'll see you off to the station, and your luggage -- here it all is, I see; and I can put you into a train direct for Church Cloverley, and you will get there all right and safe. It is only about three hours' ride, and you'll be there an hour or two before nightfall. You can't get into much mischief while you have an English tongue in your head.'

In a few minutes Ben and Annie were driving through the streets of Liverpool, and started from the station by their friend, without any trouble, but still in anxiety and doubt about their Uncle Ludlow. They sat close together in the railway carriage, sometimes talking to one another of their anxiety, and sometimes silently thinking about it; and at every station inquiring eagerly if it was Church Cloverley. The innumerable green fields through which they passed were refreshing to their eyes after the long rolling of the waves past the ship in which they had been imprisoned for more than three weeks. Yet upon their hearts weighed heavily the sense that they were not in their own native land, but that they were strangers in a strange country. They felt that there was something peculiar in their own look, and they shrank, both of them, from the gaze of the passengers who occupied the same compartment; but Ben's face flushed, and his eye kindled with a feeling of pride and resentment; while the tears which gathered slowly under Annie's eyelids were wiped quietly away as she looked through the window up into the blue sky flecked with the white clouds of the April showers. Their lost home lay behind her many thousand miles away; but the friendly sky bent over these green meadows with the same aspect as in America, and she could not feel utterly forlorn while she could look up into its clear, blue depths and think of the heaven beyond it. Now and then Ben felt the warm, loving pressure of her hand; and when he turned his angry eyes upon her patient face, he felt his resentment and rebellion calming down, and his heart growing more tender towards his little sister.

They reached Church Cloverley at last without any hindrance or misadventure. The sun was just sinking behind the long, level line of the uplands, and its rays shone brightly upon the opposite peaks of Helmeth, with its gorse bushes glowing like burnished gold in the light; and the flocks of sheep winding down the furrowed slopes in white lines to their fold at the foot of the mountain. All around the village the hills rose up like high walls, and the sky overhead seemed to lie close down upon their summits, as if it was spreading brooding wings over the peaceful valley. A few country sounds alone could be heard: the deep low of the cattle in the fields echoing from rock to rock; the tinkling of the sheep-bells, and the barking of the shepherds' dogs far away up the glens. For a few minutes only there was the bustle and noise of the train stopping, and the departure of two or three passengers who had come by it; but as soon as these were gone the place settled into silence again, and once more Ben and Annie found themselves standing alone beside their heavy boxes.

'Annie,' said Ben, with a deep sob, 'I'd give the world to be back again at home. I feel as if I could not breathe here. These grand folks don't care for us, or they'd have come to meet us somehow. I can't bear to go and ask them to take us in for charity. I'm big enough, and strong enough, ay! and sharp enough, to get my own living; and if it was not for you, I'd go straight ahead to some town and work my own way. I guess I'd like to do it as it is, and show them that an American boy can do without any of their help.'

Ben stopped, and set his mouth ready to whistle 'Hail Columbia!' again, but his lips were too unsteady; and a big tear rolled down his cheeks on to Annie's little hand.

'Ben,' she said, 'we did not come here to do what we like, but what father thinks is best for us. You could get your own living, and mine too, perhaps; and if father had thought it right, I should have liked keeping house for you. Oh, it would have been so nice! But we are in England instead of at home, and we must try to do what is best. We are not quite alone, Ben. Sometimes I think ourmother knows all about us; because, you know, when the angels who take care of us go back to heaven she would be sure to ask them, and they would tell her. But even if our mother does not know, God knows.'

Annie's eyes looked up with a smile into Ben's gloomy face, and then higher up into the deepening blue of the evening sky. It was enough for her simple and childlike heart that God knew all, and that no sorrow or trial could touch her without His permission. A little troubled she might feel, and she might shrink a little from the disappointments she met; but in the depths of her spirit there was a peace which no storm from without could reach, and even now, alone and weary and anxious, the child's heart rested in simple trust upon the will of the Father in heaven.

'Annie,' said Ben in a softened tone, 'it will soon be night, so I will go and ask the stationmaster how we can get to Uncle Ludlow's house. Sit here, and keep this cloak round you till I come back.'

It was some time before Ben returned; and when he came at last he told Annie he had been to hire a donkey-cart to carry the luggage to All Cloverley, for he deemed it too precious to be left in the care of strangers. The stationmaster and the porters regarded the boy with mingled curiosity and amusement as he directed and helped in the packing of the cart. They were an outlandish couple of children, they whispered one to another -- Ben with his shrewd, quick eye, and his quaint suit of home-spun and home-made cloth; and Annie in her odd dress and her coarse hat, under which was hidden so fair and sweet a face that no one could see it without forgetting the fashion of her clothes. The loiterers about the station gathered into a little knot round the gate to watch them going slowly up the quiet lane, the donkey-cart well heaped with luggage going first, led by its ragged owner, and Ben and Annie following it hand in hand with tardy and weary footsteps. The twilight gathered deeper and deeper in the valley; but the children scarcely heeded it as they walked on in silence with thoughts that hurried before them to their unknown home. They remembered sadly the old American farmstead with its loghouse, and the hard work without and within which had kept their hands and minds busy; and Ben thought that a thousand times rather would he be leading the oxen down to the water, or chopping the wood for the evening fire, than thus creeping reluctantly along the English lane to seek a home amid strange kinsfolk.

Helmeth Lodge stood before them at last, the lighted casements shining brightly in the dusk. One of the windows down-stairs was still open, and Ben and Annie as they passed it stood for a minute or two looking in with throbbing hearts. Such a room they had never seen before, with its many ornaments and beautiful pictures, and the rich carpet covering the whole of the floor, and the long lace curtains drawn over the casement. Ben grasped Annie's hand tightly as he thought of the little parlour at home with its small square of carpet and quarried floor and painted furniture, which had only been used when Captain Bakewell was there. But a boy and girl were sitting near the lamp, and both of the children held their breath and drew closer to one another as they gazed with eager eyes. Never had Annie in her dreams of Dora imagined such long, bright curls, and hands so smooth and white, a dress so elegant; while Ben's most vivid fears had never painted Gilbert's refined and dainty air. For a minute they were spellbound, drinking in the impressions made by the scene before them; and then they flung their arms round each other, and stood heart to heart in a close embrace, as if only in that way they could be sure of one another's love.

'It is God who has sent us here,' said Annie in a whisper; but Ben could not answer. There was a wild whirl of thought in his brain that even yet he could make his escape, and get away into the world to try his own fortune. But through the half-open door of the entrance hall there glimmered a light across the lawn, and Annie led him towards it almost unconsciously to himself. A lady about their mother's age was descending the staircase as if she was coming down from putting her little child to bed, and the light of the candle shone upon her gentle and motherly face. Annie saw something there that dispelled her fears, and recalled the courage she had almost lost. She pushed the door wider open, and, drawing Ben in with her, met the lady as she reached the lowest step. The little girl's voice faltered and the tears filled her eyes, but she stretched out her hands imploringly towards the stranger and cried, 'Oh, auntie! we are Ben and Annie from America; and we have come all the way alone; and there's been nobody to meet us!'

It was more than ever like a dream after that; only it was a happy dream of fond kisses and joyful and surprised welcome. When Ben and Annie came to themselves a little, they found that they were sitting by the cheerful fire of the room they had looked into from without; while Dora and Gilbert were hanging about them, and doing all they could to show their gladness and delight. It was soon explained how the long delay of the ship's arrival had compelled their uncle to return home, but he had started off again as soon as he had received a message by telegraph to say it was in port; so that he must have been in one of the trains which had passed them on the way. So soothed and comforted were the poor wandering children, all their anxieties and fears having vanished, that before long Annie was nestling upon her aunt's lap with her head resting on her bosom, and Ben sat at her side with his hand fast locked in hers, just as they had been used to sit at home on Sunday evenings while their mother talked to them of the dangers their father might meet, and of the secure protection with which God could guard him even in the battlefield.

The life at All Cloverley was altogether different from that which Ben and Annie had led in their father's farmhouse on the shores of Lake Huron. There was no hard or rough work to do; no cattle to fodder, and no floors to brush. Dora and Gilbert knew nothing of work as Ben and Annie knew it; and even Mrs. Ludlow had such a life of quiet leisure and comfort as it had never been Elinor Bakewell's lot to enjoy. All the household cares were taken off her mind by a busy and thrifty servant named Martha Fern, who prided herself upon her good housewifery, and did not, as she was accustomed to boast, let the grass grow under her feet. The affairs of the family went on day after day with a smooth order and nicety, which made Ben feel strangely out of place. It seemed ridiculous to him when he awoke in the morning at sunrise, while every one else was still sleeping soundly, to dress himself in his very best suit of home-made clothes, which he was only to wear until he could have some made like Gilbert's, and when he came down-stairs to find no labour waiting for his busy hands to do. It fretted and chafed him sorely; and he tried to work out his idle time in digging in the garden, and transplanting every shrub which the gardener allowed him to move, until Dora declared that the trees looked as if they were performing a dance. Gilbert started off every morning to Longville, a village five miles away, where he was attending a grammar school, to which Mr. Ludlow decided upon sending Ben as soon as his new and fashionable suit of clothes came home. There was some difficulty as to what must be done with Annie; for Dora received lessons, with five other young ladies, in a very select class, under the instruction of a lady in Church Cloverley; but when it was discovered that the children could only read and write, and positively knew nothing of the ordinary branches of education as it is given in schools, Mrs. Ludlow decided to keep Annie at home, and teach her herself during the quiet leisure hours of the morning.

Perhaps there was no boy in all the valley, and upon all the hills of Cloverley, more miserable than Ben Bakewell. For the last two years he had been holding the post of a man, and doing a man's work upon his father's farm; caring neither for the heat nor cold, and being most glad when he had the hardest work to do; for his mother had never been slow to praise his industry and perseverance, and his heart would beat high with satisfaction when he surveyed his own labour. It was, therefore, a very mortifying thing to find himself brought down to the level of boyhood again; and, above all, to feel, hour after hour, his inferiority to Gilbert, who was far advanced in all the studies of which he was ignorant, and who seemed to keep instinctively the many little rules of good behaviour which Ben could not remember and observe. Dora's bright eyes seemed to notice all his roughness and awkwardness, until the boy grew afraid in her presence, and his frank face wore an air of sullenness and gloom. He wandered away for hours together over the hills, caring nothing for the heavy spring showers, which beat the birds back to their nests, and drove the ponies and sheep to the valleys for shelter. He rather liked to meet Gilbert riding home daintily on his pony, with an umbrella shielding him from the rain, while his own rough frieze coat was soaked through, and his thick shoes covered with the mud of the bogs on the hillside; though, whenever his uncle Ludlow laughed at him, and called him a Yankee bog-trotter, and a clodhopper, his brown cheeks would flush with a deep red, and he had to set his teeth together firmly lest he should utter some of the angry words which burned upon his tongue.

It was very different with Annie. There was one simple thought in the child's mind -- the desire to do and to bear the will of God in all things; which, like a shield, turned aside every influence that could hurt or grieve her. It had been the chief thought in her mother's mind; and for many an hour together had Mrs. Bakewell talked about it to her little daughter. So nothing could come amiss to Annie. When Dora thoughtlessly laughed, and looked with contempt upon the dresses which were unpacked out of the great trunk, the colour mounted to Annie's forehead, and the tears started to her eyes as she thought of her dead mother; but she owned meekly that they were not so fine and pretty as her cousin's; yet, she said, in a tone that made Dora sorry for her laughter, they were what God had provided for her. And when Gilbert was poring over his Latin lessons, and Ben sat by discontented and gloomy, and frowning when he was told he would soon have the same unwelcome work to do, Annie was always ready to slip her arm round his neck, and whisper that it was no fault of his that he was ignorant of things like this. She made herself busy following Martha Fern about the house, and saving her many journeys up and down-stairs, until Martha praised her far above Dora, who never liked to set her hand to any kind of house-work. Meek and busy, patient and active, Annie won her way quickly to the hearts of all; until her uncle himself loved to see her wistful face peep round the door of his study, and he would find portfolios full of pictures, over which she bent delightedly for hours, turning them over with a careful quietness that pleased and amused Mr. Ludlow.

It was the first Sunday afternoon after their arrival in England, and all the family were gone to church except Mrs. Ludlow, who stayed at home with her youngest child, when Ben and Annie strolled away together to a pleasant and quiet place near at hand on the hillside, which Ben had discovered a day or two before. A narrow sheep-track led to a little hollow, like a basin, in the steep slope of the mountain, which was quite hidden from the sight of any dwelling, save that a thin column of blue smoke rose from behind a rock at a little distance from the chimney of a cottage which was built behind it. Just above one side of the hollow could be seen the rocky peak of the great Helmeth; but in the front there stood a screen of tall trees, as if intended to hide the sheltered nook from a lane, which lay deep down below it between high banks and hedgerows of hawthorn. The tops of the larch trees, with their new green tassels of spring leaves and their rose-coloured blossoms, were just on a level with the children's heads; while behind them was the steep slope of the mountain, where the sheep were browsing undisturbedly, and where the ponies paused to look down upon them with a curious and deliberate survey. There was scarcely a sound to be heard except the soft note of the cuckoo, and now and then the plaintive bleating of a lamb as it toiled after its mother along the stony track. Ben and Annie also sat still for a long time in unbroken silence; for the boy's heart was very heavy, and Annie felt his trouble more keenly than her own.

'Ben,' she said at last, laying her hand tenderly upon his as he looked gloomily over the tree-tops, 'my father gave me a letter before we left New York, and we were to read it together the first Sunday we were in England, and at other times if we were in trouble. I have it here, wrapped up in this silver paper and sealed. Look, Ben, I've never broken the seals. Often and often I've wanted to open it, because I thought we were in great trouble; but my father said I must be patient, and keep it for the first Sunday we were in England.'

He looked curiously at the little packet, with its large black seals, as Annie's trembling fingers broke them open and unfolded the silver paper. Within lay a letter written in their mother's handwriting; and as the children saw it, there came back with a keen pang all the sense of their loss and loneliness. So far away was even their mother's grave, that they could not take the letter there and sit beside its little mound while they read it together.

'Ben,' murmured Annie after a while, 'I'll read the letter aloud to you. Maybe my mother is somewhere very near to us, or the angels may be waiting to tell her how we read her letter alone by ourselves, on the first Sunday we were in England. They will be sure to hear us.'

She glanced round for an instant with a bright light in her eyes, as if she could almost see angels near them in the solitary hollow on the hillside; and then, with the clear, low tone in which her mother had taught her to speak, she read the letter aloud.

'When my darling children read these words I shall be parted from them, not only by the great ocean which lies between America and England, but by a sea which they cannot pass over until it is the will of our loving God that they should come to me; for I can never return to them. I have been trying for many long weeks to submit myself to His will; and, though it has been very hard, more bitter than death itself, His own Holy Spirit has conquered my rebellious will, and at last I can give up my son and daughter solely to His tender care. I love Him more than all else; at last, I know that my Redeemer is dearer to me even than the beloved children whom I have cared for with a mother's love every moment of their lives. I tell you this, my darlings, that you may learn that you also must love God above everything else, and give yourselves altogether to Him. Above all things, I desire that you should think of Him as your Father. You can never do His will as the angels do it until you have this thought of Him in your hearts, and the Holy Spirit is willing to give you this feeling of being the children of God. It is only when we lift up our hearts to Him as our Father in heaven that we have a will subdued to His. Just now I opened my Bible to look how often the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of Him as your "Father in heaven" -- so many, many times, that it seems almost as if He did not love to speak of God to us by any other name. "My Father and your Father," Jesus says. So I laid down my Bible, and, hiding my face with my hands, -- for you, Ben and Annie, were in my sight, and I could not bear to look at you lest my heart should fail, -- I said, "The cup that my Father bath given me, shall I not drink it?" All the bitterness of my grief passed away, and I could smile again as I listened to your laughter.

'Yes. A boy and girl, weak and young as you are, may do the will of God like the angels who excel in strength. They do it by hearkening to the voice of His word; and you also have His word, which you must read and obey every day of your lives. I think that, in the home to which I am going, perhaps God will still let me know how you are passing through this life. He will do it if it would be well for me, for He knows what is in the heart of a mother. If it be so, I could have no greater joy than to hear that my children were walking in the truth. If the angels of God rejoice over you, how much more will your mother rejoice over her son and daughter! The first step to doing God's will is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; for to them that believe on His name will He give power to become the sons of God. "I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty;" but you must consent to become His children, by believing in the Lord Jesus. The Lord Almighty does not compel you to become the brethren of His Son; but when you receive the Saviour, He gives you the power to become the children of God. Oh, choose it, my darlings! Trust yourselves to the love of Jesus, just as you used to trust yourselves to me when you were little children. I carried you about the house and the fields in my arms. I pray that this heavenly Father may bear you in His almighty arms through all the dangers and temptations of this life. May the blessing of Benjamin rest upon you both: "The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him; and the LORD shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between His shoulders." May He guard you all the day long of your earthly life; and when the night comes, as it is coming to me, you will fall asleep in Jesus.

'It is very sorrowful to begin the last words I shall ever write to you. When this letter is finished, I shall never more write your dear names -- Ben and Annie, my little children. But it is the will of our loving Father in heaven -- your Father as well as mine. See, Father, I give them up to Thee: Thou lovest them better than I do: Thou canst comfort them more than I can: Thou art wiser in Thy tender care of them than I am. Into Thy hands I commit them.

'Good-bye, my darlings. The bitterness of death is past. A few days longer I shall be with you; but these things have I written that even when I am dead I may yet speak to you. When you read this letter together in England, say within your own hearts steadfastly and bravely, and may the Holy Spirit say it also within your spirits, "Our Father, which art in heaven, Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven. Amen."

Your loving mother,

'ELINOR BAKEWELL.'

The trembling voice of Annie ceased, and she bowed her head over the open letter, while her lips moved as if saying the prayer with which her mother's letter ended; and Ben cast himself down upon the ground, and hid his face in the mossy turf from the sunshine which streamed down upon the mountain-side. So wrapped up were they in their own thoughts and memories, that they did not hear the scampering of the sheep up the hill, nor the crackling of the withered branches under a footfall that was coming near to them along the narrow track. It was that of a man about thirty years of age, with a grave but pleasant face full of kindly thought; and as he reached the front of the hollow, he paused for a minute looking down upon the children with a pitying smile, as of some shepherd who had found the lambs which had wandered from his fold. He could see the downcast face of Annie, her lips moving with soundless words, and the tears starting from under her eyelashes; and his heart was touched to its inmost depths.

'Children,' he said, lowering his voice to a soft and soothing tone, ' what ails you? My little lass, what makes thee weep? Please God, I might do something to help thee out of thy trouble, if thee could rightly tell it me. Thou'rt a stranger in these parts, for I never saw thee before; but thee need not be afraid of me.'

Annie lifted up her face, and Ben peeped through his fingers, for his eyes were red with weeping; but the sight of the stranger banished all shame or distrust. His clothes were of rough frieze cloth like Ben's, and his skin was sunburnt and brown with exposure to the weather; but there was a tender smile upon his mouth, and the tears stood in his brown eyes as he met the inquiring gaze of the children.

'We only came to Cloverley last Monday,' answered Annie, with a sob, 'and we've been reading a letter from my mother, who is dead. She died in the winter, at home in America, and my father is in the war; and she wants us to say from our very hearts, "Thy will be done!"

'Then you are the children of Captain Bakewell,' said the stranger, lifting his hat from his head for a moment, -- 'the nephew and niece of my dear mistress! I am Martha's brother, Stephen Fern. She came up to Fern's Hollow the other night, and she told us Master Ben and Miss Annie were come safe. My dears, I've known your cousins ever since they were little enough to ride on my shoulder over the hills; and if they were in any trouble, they would almost as soon come to Stephen for help as go to their own father. Will you let me talk to you as freely as I'd speak to them?'

'Oh yes!' cried Ben and Annie in one breath, as they made room for him to sit down between them on the grass. The kind face and homely dress seemed aImost familiar to them, and Ben laid his head upon Stephen's shoulder, while Annie slid her little fingers into the clasp of his large hand.

'My dears,' said Stephen, in the same lowered tone as before, 'we're going to talk about God's will. But, first of all, are both of you trying to be the disciples of the Lord Jesus?'

'Yes,' whispered Annie; and Ben nodded his head, though he could not trust himself to speak.

'It seems to me,' continued Stephen, 'that there are two sorts of disciples -- one sort that have just enough faith in Him to get their souls saved; and another sort that try to follow up very close in His steps. It's like a flock of sheep. Some of them keep quite close to the fold, and are never in any danger of being lost; and there are others that will stray away as far as ever they can from the track, till they almost lose sight even of that. I've had many a sheep that would only just creep home to the fold at night; and I've had others that would run to meet me whenever they caught sight of me along the hills. My dears, which sort of disciples do you wish to be?'

'Mother wants us to be like the little brother and sister of the Lord Jesus,' answered Annie.

'Miss Annie,' said Stephen, 'that is the hardest thing for poor sinners like us to be; but it's a blessed thing. Don't thee remember what He says Himself: "Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven"? My little lady, it is doing, not saying. Many and many a time I've knelt down and said, "Lord, Lord," as if I was willing to do anything for Him; and when I've got up from my knees I've been idle, or ill-tempered, or careless, or unbelieving, or any other evil thing I was tempted to be. I used to think "Thy will be done" was only to be said when I was in some great trouble, or had to give up something I cared about a great deal; but I've found out it means much more than that. You know we are to say "Our Father" every day, and so it means that every day, in all the little common things as well as the great ones, and in everything we do as well as suffer, we are to do the will of God. Do you understand this not saying, but doing?'

'Stephen Fern,' said Ben, his face reddening as he spoke, 'I've not been doing the will of God this week, at any rate. I've been used to do hard work, tending the cattle and chopping wood; and it is so different here, where I'm expected to be idle and a gentleman all day long. Dora and Gilbert are ashamed of our rough clothes. I heard Dora ask my aunt not to let us go to church this afternoon, because her grand schoolfellows laughed at Annie and me this morning; and I felt real mad. I guess I'm not ready to bear all God's will yet.'

'Master Ben,' answered Stephen, 'to do God's will is a hard lesson for any of us to learn, and it takes a long time to learn it. But surely, if it's His will that thee should be a gentleman, and get learning that will make thee a useful man, and set thee up above common work such as any poor, ignorant lad does, thee'lt not rebel against that. It'll be thy duty to learn as much as ever thee can; and Miss Dora and Gilbert will soon have no cause to be ashamed of thee.'

The gloom passed away from Ben's face, as he sat silent for a minute or two, looking thoughtfully across at the topmost branches of the fir trees, which were waving to and fro in the wind; but he was not noticing them, or the squirrel leaping from tree to tree; and an expression of courage and resolve followed the sadness, though he sighed a little as he turned his eyes to Stephen Fern's face.

'I'll try,' he said; 'but it is a whole week or more before I can go to school, and I've nothing to do down yonder. If they would only set me to fell some of those trees!'

'I'll tell thee what,' answered Stephen: 'if thee and Miss Annie would like it, there's room for you both up at Fern's Hollow; and I'd take you out on the hills, and down to the field at Botfield; and I'd find thee plenty of work to do. There's a nice little room to spare up-stairs, and Miss Annie could sleep there; and we could make thee a bed on the settle down-stairs. There's no place in the world like Fern's Hollow! I'd not change it for Helmeth Lodge, or the parsonage house at Danesford; and my Mary would be right proud to see you. Would you like to come to my home, Master Ben and Miss Annie?'

Ben gave Stephen's hand a grip, and Annie looked up into his face with a smile, which answered his question better than words. The letter was wrapped up again, and placed safely in Annie's bosom; and then Stephen walked down with them to Helmeth Lodge. Their aunt was glad to give her consent to any scheme which seemed pleasant to the exiled children, and the matter was speedily settled. The next morning Annie was to ride on Gilbert's pony as far as Botfield, while the two boys walked by her side; and Gilbert was to leave her and Ben at a little machine-house belonging to the Botfield coal-works, where they would be sure to find Stephen Fern, who was the bailiff of the coal-pits and lime quarries belonging to Mr. Ludlow. Gilbert wished heartily that he could go with his cousins for a week at Fern's Hollow; and even Dora owned that she should enjoy staying all night in the pretty cottage on the hills. 'Stephen Fern,' said Gilbert to Ben, 'is one of the best fellows in the world, and no mistake whatever about that.'

It was a fine, soft morning, with a light wind stirring the branches of the trees overhead, which were yet only half covered with tender leaf-buds ready to burst out of their sheaths. The children's road lay along the quiet highway tending northward, with hills on each side and narrow lanes winding down steeply into the road from lonely farmhouses and cottages, which were built upon the little platforms and terraces of level land upon the mountain slopes. One of these lanes led up to Fern's Hollow, but, as Ben and Annie did not know the way, they were to go to Botfield with Gilbert; and as they went along, Gilbert explained to them how he and Ben were to ride and tie to school at Longville; that is, how every morning they would take it in turns for one of them to start on walking ten minutes in advance, and the other, riding past him, would go as far as the Gorsty Bank, which he pointed out to them, and there dismount and tie the pony to a gate to wait for the one who was behind, while he would walk on himself as swiftly as he could; and the first would then ride on all the way to Botfield, and leave the pony at the machine-house until the second came up to finish the ride to Longville. The children agreed that it would be a very good plan, though Ben laughed a little, and said an American did not think much of eight miles out and in again -- he could do harder work than that, and it was nothing to the long marches his father was forced to take with his soldiers. The colour died away out of Annie's rosy face; and Gilbert, who was holding Strawberry's bridle, heard her sigh sorrowfully; so he turned the conversation, and, looking up pleasantly into the little girl's face, he told her to notice how the hills were leaving them on each side, and the valley was widening into a broad plain.

It was just as Gilbert said. The great Helmeth, which name, he told them, meant the middle height, lay nearly three miles behind them, and the range of mountains was branching out right and left, and dwindling down into smaller hills and smoother slopes. At one point of the road, where Gilbert stopped the pony for them to have a look at the landscape, they could see lying before them a wide plain, divided into innumerable fields, and stretching far away until at length it was lost in the haze of the morning; but near at hand there was one desolate-looking spot, covered over with great banks of rubbish, ugly and barren, save for a few plants of coltsfoot which were creeping over them. A tall chimney, black with smoke, stood in the midst of the banks, with rows of chains running along from it on the tops of poles to the mouth of a coal-pit at a little distance; but there was no smoke coming out of the black chimney, and the rusty chains were not creaking and clanging, as they would have done if they had been drawing skips of coal up the shaft. Gilbert's face grew grave as he told them that yonder pit-banks were Botfield works, and that they were just about to enter the village. It was like a long, straggling street, with scattered cottages, pleasant enough to look at or to pass through; for every dwelling had its own garden and potato-plat, in many of which there were beehives under the hedges, and here and there along the road might be seen a brood of young chickens or downy little ducklings, fluttering back to hide under the hen-mother's wings at the clatter of Strawberry's hoofs. But Ben and Annie were astonished to see most of the men idling about in a listless manner, though it was Monday morning, and time to be at work again; and the children about the cottage doors were more ragged and starved-looking than they had ever seen children in America. Most of the men touched their caps, and bade Gilbert good morning, and the boys and girls bowed and curtsied to him as they stood staring to see them pass by. Ben felt awkward and embarrassed, but Gilbert received their attentions as a matter of course; yet, though he answered them all frankly and heartily, he seemed to grow more and more serious, until they came in sight of the machine-house, where Stephen Fern was watching for them from the doorway.

It was a small square building, standing at the end of the lane which led to the pits; and before the door there was the machine for weighing the loads of coal and lime brought from the works. Inside there was a little counter, and a desk with a high stool before it, and account-books lying upon the lid, from which Stephen made out the coal and lime tickets for the buyers. Ben and Annie peeped in, but preferred staying out in the sunshine, and Stephen took his cap down from a peg to go over the field with them. Gilbert was still lingering in the lane as if he was in no hurry to go on to school; and at last he spoke hurriedly, and with a very anxious face.

'Stephen,' he said, 'how are things going on? I could learn my lessons ten times better if I knew. Poor mamma looks sorrowful often, and I know she is very careful to save expense; and papa says he must give up his journey to the Holy Land, though he wants to paint a grand picture there. Tell me, there's a good Stephen! They think at home it would be a trouble to me; and they forget how I have to come through Botfield twice every day, and see the poor fellows hulking about, and getting to look worse and worse, or hear of them going off to seek for work. How long is this to go on?'

'As long as it seems good to Him who knows what's best,' answered Stephen, looking thoughtfully at the boy's anxious face: 'please God, there'll be work and good times for us all again by and by. If we could only hit upon the right place for sinking a new shaft, I know there is more coal under ground. But the lime is doing well, Master Gilbert; and there'll be more call for bricks now the spring is set in. The master needn't give up his journey, and maybe he'll prosper mightily with his pictures. There are better times coming, my boy.'

'If I could only do something!' said Gilbert earnestly. 'I am nearly as old as Ben, and many a boy begins to earn his own living at our age. Ben could, I know. But just look at me, Stephen. Why, if anything happened, I should not know what to do to help my poor mamma; I should only be a burden to her. I do wish I was like Ben.'

Gilbert hid his face against Strawberry's neck for a minute, while Ben and Annie were struck with astonishment that he should wish to be like Ben; but before anyone else spoke, he raised his head again with a smile in his eyes.

'I know what you are going to say, Stephen,' he continued; 'whatever it is, you'll begin with saying, "Please God!" And I'll say it too. He knows that the seam of coal is finished, and the people have been without work all the winter, and mamma is sorely troubled about it; and, please God, Stephen, you will soon find the best place for a new pit. I'm glad you're here to take care of everything. Good-bye, all of you!'

The children and Stephen stood watching him until he looked round to wave his cap to them just as he passed out of sight; and then he turned down the lane to the works. A huge wheel stood by the road-side, with a runlet of water from the hills falling upon it; but it was not turning, and the trickling of the little stream made a tinkling music amid the stillness. A little further on the limekilns were smoking, and two or three men were flitting about, half hidden by the thick, white clouds of smoke; but all the rest of the field was deserted. The engine-house and the blacksmith's shop were shut up; and the roof of the cabin at the pit's mouth had been blown off by the winter winds, and not replaced. The pit, Stephen told them, was filled with water; and when Ben and Annie peered cautiously down the shaft, they could just catch a gleam of a faint and dark glistening in the black depths; and a sullen splash echoed up the round wall when Ben threw a stone down it. Stephen drew them back from the brink when he heard it, and a sorrowful look stole over his face; and then he led them quickly away to another part of the works. Every place looked decayed and ruined, as if it had been deserted for many years, though Stephen told them that it was only the autumn before that the seam of coal had run suddenly into what the colliers called a fault; that is, some layer of rock, or some abrupt dip in the soil underground had come across the seam, and the rest of the coal was lowered far beneath the level of the pit, or perhaps raised high above it. They had found it useless to try to work to the fresh coal from below, and the only thing that could be done was to sink a new shaft from the surface of the earth. All the winter through they had been waiting for the spring to come, and bring weather suitable for beginning the new works; yet it had not been so bad a time as the workmen and their families might have expected, for the mistress had established a savings-bank for the men while they were receiving full wages, and most of them had a little store laid by. Still they were anxious times anyhow, said Stephen, as he led them to the corner of a field where a number of labourers were just beginning the new shaft; it would cost several thousand pounds to make it, and if the coal should not be there after all, the money would be thrown away, and the time lost. It would dishearten anybody, he added, pressing Annie's hand, which he held in his, if they were not quite sure that all things work together for good to them that love God.

It was getting on for noonday before Stephen and the children started for Fern's Hollow, which they could see a long way off, its white walls standing out clearly against a coppice of fir trees, which was planted behind it to screen it from the north winds. It stood high up on the hillside; and as it had been built by old Mr. Wyley at the same time as Helmeth Lodge, it was something after the same style, with two small gables in the roof, which was very high and sloping, that the heavy snows might not lodge upon it in the winter. At one side of the cottage there was a barn of rough, unbarked timber, which reminded Ben and Annie of their own barn on the farm-stead by Lake Huron. All along the front of the house was a narrow slip of garden ground, planted with hardy flowers, and with a bowered seat at the point where the finest view could be seen over the plain, and across the valley to the great Helmeth. Their path to the garden wicket lay across a lovely meadow, sloping away to the south, and having a clear little stream rippling through it, which widened and deepened into a clear pool towards the middle of the field. Long before they could reach the gate they saw Stephen's wife watching for their arrival; and a handsome shepherd dog came bounding over the round brow of the hill to meet his master, and sniff inquiringly round the strange children, until at last he condescended to slide his cold nose under Annie's hand. Stephen's wife said it was a great mark of favour, for Sandy was sometimes stiff with her even; but Martha had told them when she was up at Fern's Hollow that nothing with life and sense could help loving Miss Annie.

The children thought that Stephen Fern had spoken the truth when he told them that there was no place in the world like Fern's Hollow. Besides the front garden, there was another laid out on the southern slope of the hollow, so sheltered by the hills and trees, and so warmed by the noonday sun, that the fruit trees were already white with blossoms, and the boughs of the currant and gooseberry bushes were laden with clusters of tiny berries. In the meadow, lambs and colts were frisking about on the soft sward, and broods of goslings and ducklings were swimming to and fro on the clear, cool little pool.

Behind the fir coppice there was a great tract of uplands, leading far away over the tops of the mountains, where many flocks of sheep and herds of wild ponies, some of them belonging to their uncle and to Stephen, lived through all the summer months, and sometimes all the year round. During the afternoon Ben and Annie rambled about this open tableland, startling the timid hares from their forms, and watching the heavily-loaded bees flying back to their hives in the valley so slowly that it seemed as if they could never reach home with their rich burdens. When Stephen returned from the works in the evening, there was not a trace of gloom or sadness left upon either of their faces.

Stephen's wife had prepared the little parlour for Ben and Annie; but Stephen gave them their choice whether they would sit there alone, or come to the kitchen fire with him and Mary. The air upon the hill was yet chilly at nightfall, and the children were glad to get close to the bright fire, sitting side by side, with Stephen and his wife opposite them, resting after the day's labour. Now and then Stephen sang for them some of the hymns which were favourites with him and his old comrades who were used to work in the pits; and Ben and Annie in their turn sang together the American hymns and choruses which Stephen had never heard. The time passed quickly, and it was getting late on in the evening, when there came a loud rap at the door, and the latch was lifted from without before Mary Fern could reach the threshold.

'God save all here!' said a rough voice; and a short, thickset man, with tangled locks of red hair hanging round his face, stepped into the house, followed by a woman whose face was sunburnt like a gipsy's, and looked the browner for the thick white border of her cap, which was quilled closely round it. They stood still for an instant when their eyes fell upon the children in the corner of the fireplace, until Stephen bade them welcome with a hearty voice.

'Come on, Tim and Bess!' he cried; 'draw up, old comrades. Here's a chair for thee, Bess, close beside the fire. Why, thee art wet, woman! Hast thee walked all the way from Botfield in the rain?'

'There was a scud of rain coming over the bent of the hill,' said Bess; 'but I was very wishful to come on and see thee, Stephen. We need heartening, and nobody can do it like thee. Tim there has had a fit of the dismals; for it's a wearing thing for a man to he pottering about the house and the little children all day long.'

'Ay is it!' said Tim. 'I've turned nurse and housekeeper, while Bess has been weeding and picking stones in Miss Reynolds' garden, at Cloverley Old Hall. That's three miles out and in again -- six miles; and breaking her back with stooping for twelve hours, barring her dinner-time; and she gets eightpence a day for it. I don't call that a fair day's wage for a fair day's work.'

'Nor do I,' answered Stephen, with a glance of pity, which called a faint smile upon Bess's brown face.

'I went down myself,' continued Tim, 'and told the old lady I'd no work to do, and I'd take the job; but she'd not hear talk of it. I told her I'd do it for the eightpence, if Bess might only go back to the children; but she said I only wanted to get the money to waste it in drink. As if a fellow like me 'ud work twelve hours for eightpence to take it to the public-house! Bess she would have, or none of us; so I was forced to come home to the babies.'

'There's mighty little nature in her,' said Bess, sighing; but she doesn't know what it is to have a lot of little children crying for their mammy. I met Mrs. Ludlow in All Cloverley; and doesn't she think of the children? Bless her! she gave me a lapful of good meat for them, as more than paid me for walking six miles. So Tim has no call to be down-hearted, has he, Stephen? We came past the new shaft, and it's getting on well. There'll be plenty of work by and by.'

Bess spoke cheerily, with a frequent glance towards Tim, who had seated himself before the fire, and was staring moodily into its red embers. She nodded her head meaningly at Stephen, and went on speaking.

'Stephen,' she said, 'thee knows I'm no scholar; and Tim can't make out much, so as to enjoy himself at his book. Maybe our little Nan'll soon get learning enough to read for us; but there's no school, save the dame school, nearer than Longville, and the children can't go half their time. But I reckon there'll be something in the Bible to meet our case. Does it tell of any colliers being thrown out of work, and what they did, and how God Almighty helped them out of their trouble? Surely, Stephen, thee will read us something to give us heart.'

'There is comfort in it,' said Stephen, smiling, 'but there's no case exactly like thine, Bess. It would be a big book that held all our lives. But it does say plain enough, "Take no thought for the morrow, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things."'

'That's very good,' said Bess, with a glance at Tim; 'your heavenly Father knows you want clothes and meat. Sure He knows all about us; and when things are at the worst they'll mend.'

'It says, too,' continued Stephen, 'that God hath chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He hath promised to them that love Him.'

'Hearken, Tim!' cried Bess; '"rich in faith!" Well, we can be rich in that, I reckon ; though we are as poor as crows in everything else.'

'It takes a deal of faith,' said Tim, 'to see the little children wanting almost everything, and thee eager and strong for work and getting none to do. It takes a deal of faith to believe that God cares. A lot of the men are going off to Netley to seek for work; but it's hard to leave the place where me and Bess and the children were all born. Rich folks don't know our troubles. The mistress herself seems to let them go by lightly. Why, Stevie, I can scarce keep out of the public-house when I'm sauntering about all day with my hands before me. My feet go their own ways there, and I can scarce stop them on the doorstep.'

'That's bad,' answered Stephen, while a grave look clouded his pleasant face, 'and the other men say the same. I don't know what's to be done. If we could only fill up the time a bit till the new shaft is finished, it would be a good thing.'

'Tim,' said Bess eagerly, 'dost thee remember the old times, when Miss Annie, before she married to Mr. Ludlow, used to have a night-school for you grown-up men? And they used to go, ay, from twenty to thirty of them, to learn their reading and writing, till the public was well-nigh empty those nights. If there'd be something of that sort two or three times a week, it 'ud help to keep their hearts up; and they'd have something to do at home, thee knows, with writing copies and getting their reading ready. Why, I've Tim's copybook laid by yet; he set such store upon it; and he was getting on rarely. It's the men that feel it the most; us women can always find plenty to do.'

They sat silent for some minutes in grave thought, while Bess glanced anxiously from one to another with her hard-working hands lying weariedly upon her lap. Ben and Annie, who had been listening attentively in the chimney-corner, were as deep in thought as the rest. Out in America there had been no lack of work; the want had been all on the other side -- that of workmen to do it. It was a new thing to them to hear of men strong and eager for labour, yet not finding any to do.

'I can't see how to manage it,' said Stephen sadly; 'I'm too busy with the works, and my own farm to see after. What with one thing or another, I'm kept on till eight o'clock, and it 'ud be too far for any of you to come up from Botfield at that time of night. The machine-house would be the place for a school if we had any teacher; and, please God, He may send us a teacher.'

Annie's face grew crimson as Stephen spoke, and she laid her hand in Ben's, as if to gain courage from his grasp. It seemed a hard thing to do, but she knew how to read and write well; they were the only things she did know; and she might help this poor man in his trouble. She thought of the unfaithful and slothful servant who had only one talent, and went and hid that in the earth instead of using it for his lord. Keeping a fast hold of Ben, she touched Stephen's arm with the other hand, and he turned his grave face towards her.

'Stephen,' she said, 'I know how to read and write very well; and I have nothing to do. If auntie would let me, I could teach this poor man. Ben and Gilbert will come through Botfield to their school, and every Wednesday and Saturday they only go for half the day; if it would do for him, I could come with them those mornings, and they would take me back at dinner-time. I am nearly twelve years old; and, Stephen, our Lord Jesus was only that old when He went to the temple, hearing the doctors and asking them questions. I don't think I should be too little to try to teach reading and writing.'

'Yes, Stephen,' Ben added promptly, 'and I'm quite willing for Annie to do it; and perhaps Aunt Ludlow would let Gilbert and me stay an hour longer to teach the men better than Annie could. We could fix it first-rate; the machine-house will do for the school, and the men and boys could come at eleven o'clock and read to Annie till we came, and we would take the writing. In America every boy and girl is taught to read and write well Annie shall read you a chapter out of the Bible if you like. Dora herself cannot do it better.'

Ben looked proudly round the circle gathered about the fire, and he smiled confidently as his eye fell upon a Bible which lay upon a small table under the window. Before Stephen could answer, he had sprung from his seat, and, reaching it down, opened it and laid it upon Annie's lap; while he held up his hand to enjoin them to silence, and told her to read the chapter at which the book opened. The child's voice faltered a little, but it soon grew clear and steady; and while Stephen shaded his face with his hand, and Tim fastened his eyes upon Annie, and Bess from time to time wiped away the falling tears with the corner of her check apron, Annie read aloud the history of the Saviour's great agony in the garden of Gethsemane, where even to Him the will of God was so hard to bear that He cried out, 'Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless, not what I will, but what Thou wilt.'

'Bless her!' said Bess in a low voice when Annie finished and sat looking up timidly into Stephen's shaded face; 'there's not a man in the works but 'ud be proud to learn reading of her. It's as good reading as the parson's any day. Eh! but Tim'll be set up if ever he reads his words out as glib as that.'

'My little lady,' said Stephen, looking down fondly upon Annie, 'I think that would be doing God's will if thy auntie says nothing against it. But the child Jesus was subject to His parents, and so must thou be, even to giving up what seems good and right to thyself; for He left the doctors and the temple at His mother's bidding. Shall we go down to Cloverley to-morrow and ask thy auntie about it ? and if she's willing, we can settle everything while thou'rt here, and begin the school next Saturday.'

'Yes,' answered Annie, with a little sigh as she looked at Tim's red face and the thick shock of hair surrounding it. She thought of the machine-house filled with rough men like him, with loud, hoarse voices which would drown her low and quiet tones, and she shrank for a moment from the task she had taken upon herself. But the face of Bess beamed with pleasure, and Stephen's eyes rested upon her approvingly, and Ben looked proud and satisfied. When Tim and Bess at last pushed their chairs back, and made an awkward bow and courtesy to their mistress's nephew and niece, Annie went forward and held out her little brown hand to them with a glance of interest and confidence in her grown-up scholars. Tim's voice was more husky than ever as he said, 'Good-night, and God bless thee!' and, though Stephen walked across the meadow with them to the head of the lane which led down to Botfield, he did not speak a word until they were about to part.

'Yon little lass is one of thy sort, Stephen,' he said; 'I reckon it 'ud be better for every soul among us if we could read our Bibles like her. She read it with heart, man -- with her whole heart, and it thrills through mine now. I'd walk to Cloverley and back every day just to hear yon little lass speaking the verses out in that way.'

The school at Botfield was begun the next Saturday morning; and Tim Cole and five of his comrades came to it as Annie's scholars, the roughest-looking but gentlest-mannered scholars in the world. In a few weeks, more of the men who were out of work placed themselves under the little teacher. It was a fair sight to be seen every Wednesday and Saturday morning in the old machine-house at Botfield, as Mr. Ludlow gazed upon it one day through the half-open door until he thought it a more beautiful picture than any which decorated his walls at home. There sat Annie, perched up on the tall stool which stood before the desk where Stephen kept his account-books, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes bright with eager interest, as she looked round upon her rough pupils, and listened to their stammering efforts at reading like herself, while the men knotted their hard faces and twisted their bodies into various expressions and attitudes of laborious study. But upon every man's face there came a light and a smile when Annie spoke to him, and in his eyes there was a look which spoke of his love for his young teacher. 'A little child shall lead them,' said Mr. Ludlow to himself as he turned away and sat down under a tree in the hedgerow to wait until Annie was ready to walk home with him; and he began to consider solemnly and sadly how much he had been living for his own pleasure, and how little he had done to bring his workpeople to the knowledge of their Saviour.

The sinking of the new shaft went on but slowly, for many hindrances were met with in the flowing in of water beyond the force of the water-wheel to pump out; yet the hearts of the men, who were waiting for work in their native village rather than wander away to seek it in a strange place, kept up bravely. The summer would be less hard in its pressure upon their homes than the biting winter had been. The children played out of doors after their meals of dry bread with almost as much merriment as if they had had dainty and abundant food; and the soft breezes which ruffled their thin and ragged clothing did not sting their tender limbs as the keen frosts of the winter had done. Besides, there was more work to do upon the farm lands lying round Botfield; and such of the men as did not stand off foolishly from doing any work that was not in their own line of labour, picked up many a shilling by doing some odd job upon the farmsteads, or by tending the sheep and ponies on the hills. Stephen Fern strode more cheerily about the desolate coal-field of which he was the overseer, encouraging the colliers who were waiting patiently for the time when the fresh seam of coal should be found; and promising the children who flocked round him wherever they caught sight of his pleasant face, that very soon their mothers should go to Cloverley market again to buy them the shoes and clothing of which they began to stand in need. When Ben and Gilbert rode through Botfield, and saw its cottages basking in the summer sunshine, and the little rivulet with waters fresh from the mountains sparkling and singing down its pebbly channel, while groups of children all along its course were setting up their tiny water-mills, or paddling with bare feet in its cool ripples, they felt that there was no reason for any more care or foreboding. It was true what Annie was always saying, thought Ben and Gilbert: God was the heavenly Father; and if everybody would only do His will as the angels do it in heaven, this earth would be almost as happy as the garden of Eden, which once formed part of it.

But neither summer heat nor brightness could remove the heavy load of anxiety from the spirits of Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow. Mr. Ludlow was afraid that the coal was altogether exhausted at Botfield, and it had been with great reluctance that he had consented to spend so much money on the sinking of the new shaft. He busied himself with greater diligence than ever at his painting; and Dora, whose talent and skill in her father's art were very great, stayed at home to help him to complete several pictures which he was preparing for the autumn exhibitions, for she could fillin the backgrounds, and paint the less important portions of his works. Almost from sunrise to sunset, Dora and her father were in the studio, sometimes not speaking to one another for hours, while they stood before their easels, so intent upon the beautiful forms and faces which grew upon the canvas, that they scarcely heeded how the time flew by. It was no doubt because Dora and Annie were at home, and watched the shadow of anxiety darkening day by day upon the hearts of Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow, that their minds were more filled with thought and care than Ben's and Gilbert's; and that when Annie went to her school at Botfield she asked Stephen and Tim Cole, who was one of the head colliers, many various questions about the new shaft.

Nobody who passed by the pretty house of Helmeth Lodge, with its thick clusters of roses hanging round the casements, and its tribes of swallows skimming in and out of the gables, would have supposed that there could be much care or disappointment in so peaceful-looking a dwelling. But, even more than any of the poor colliers at Botfield, Mr. Ludlow was weighed down by the failure and confusion of his hopes and plans. He had intended to give Dora and Gilbert a thorough and finished education, and he felt that if a year or two were wasted just at their age, nothing could afterwards repair the loss; yet if the Botfield works remained unproductive, or, worse than that, continued to swallow up the money which he had laid by, it would be necessary for him to give up his cherished plans for his children. More than this, he had designed to accompany a party of artists to the Holy Land, there to paint a picture which should establish his fame, and be worthy of the art he loved. Hitherto his success had been moderately even, and his pictures of English scenery had sold at fair prices, but he felt that he had within him powers which had not yet been called forth, and the young and warm enthusiasm of Dora, who was treading swiftly after him, spurred him on to do some greater work than any he had yet attempted. But darker than their disappointment, darker far than the mere failure of his hopes and plans, was that secret dread that the coal-field was exhausted; and that there would be no more wealth brought up for him and his children from the dark chambers under ground. To the colliers it would be only the moving away to another place of labour; but to him and his household it would be giving up comfort for poverty, and parting with all that made life pleasant to them. It appeared impossible to Mr. Ludlow, as he worked away with redoubled diligence at his painting, that he could reconcile himself to the will of God, if it demanded of him to see all the future prospects of his children blighted.

It was much the same with Mrs. Ludlow. Before her marriage she had been a simple, earnest, active follower of Christ, seeking to do the will of God from her heart, in diligent service among the workpeople whom God had put under her; but the cares of her house and children had occupied her until all her heart and thoughts were wrapped up in them. Like her husband, she still trusted in God, and loved Him in a little measure; but every year her faith had been growing less, and her love more faint, while she allowed her mind to be careful and troubled about many things, and neglected the one thing needful. She fretted herself secretly with the dread of poverty, never thinking that the Son of God Himself was poor, and that she should be willing to tread in the same steps as His blessed feet had trodden. In earlier days Mrs. Ludlow had been used to look up to God as her Father to whom she could take the smallest trouble; but that thought of Him had faded away gradually, like the fading away of a flower that has little root and is choked among thorns; and though she still trusted in Him, it was with a feeble sense of His tenderness and faithfulness towards her; and she felt as if He were a Master, who sent His commands to her from a distance, rather than the heavenly Father in whose house she was always dwelling.

It was no wonder that Dora had but little thought of God, though she read her Bible and said her prayers daily; for when the highest and happiest thoughts of Him died out of Mrs. Ludlow's heart, she found it was difficult to speak of Him to her children, and she was content that they observed all the outward forms of religion; for she grew shy of talking of God's goodness and loving-kindness as she became more burdened with worldly anxieties and troubles. So it seemed a great marvel to Dora that Annie could be happy and at peace, when her mother's grave was lying far away on the shores of Lake Huron, and her father's life was exposed to perpetual peril in the terrible war that was destroying thusands upon thousands of her fellow-countrymen. Yet there was no mistaking the quiet and calm repose of Annie's face, which just now was constantly before her eyes; for her father was painting it into a picture of Christ raising the daughter of Jairus. Whatever sorrows had left their traces upon it, they all seemed chased away by some light from within; as if, like the child to whom Jesus said, 'Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise,' she had opened her eyes from the sleep of death, and fastened them upon the face of the Saviour Himself.

The picture of Jairus' daughter, with another painting executed by Dora herself, were bought by a gentleman in the neighbourhood early in the summer, for the sum of fifty pounds. It was at once decided that Mr. Ludlow should join the two artists who were setting off immediately for the Holy Land, and Dora should be trusted to fill up such portions of his paintings as he was compelled to leave unfinished for the exhibitions. There was no doubt now that her skill was great, and her knowledge of the art sufficient for the minor parts of the work. She was only fifteen years old, and a long life lay before her, which she could employ in the beautiful art for which God had given her a talent, and in which she took so much delight. When her father kissed her again and again, before he could tear himself away from home, and said that to her he owed the possibility of enjoying the long-cherished desire of his heart, and that he should more ardently seek to distinguish himself because it would pave the way to her success, Dora resolved within herself that no difficulty or hindrance should prevent her climbing to the height of her ambition, and becoming one of the most famous painters of her time.

It was a severe trial of Ben's patience and submission to the will of God in little things, to be obliged to attend the grammar-school at Longville, and every day to take his place amongst the youngest boys on the first form, for he knew nothing of grammar; while Gilbert, who was a few months younger than himself, was one of the head boys in the school, for he was a clever boy, and had been well taught from his childhood. In strength of body, and in actual knowledge of work, and in shrewdness of understanding, Ben was far ahead of his schoolfellows; and as he strode to and fro in the playground, humming 'Hail, Columbia!' which was the only tune he could master, the lads about him acknowledged the breadth of his shoulders and the sturdy weight of his fist. But in the schoolroom, where only scholarship and book-learning were of any account, he sank low down beneath the level of the least boys. Shut up in the crowded room, with the hum and buzz of many voices ringing in his ears, while he vainly tried to fix his mind upon the lessons set before him, Ben's fancy would carry hita away to the cool and shady shores of the lake at home, and the pleasant tone of his mother's voice, as she taught him all the learning she possessed herself, until the hot tears tingled under his eyelids, and his teeth had to be set firmly together to keep down the rising sobs.

It was after an unusually hard day during the midsummer examinations, when even Gilbert had laughed aloud and coloured up at some of his blunders, that Ben started off homewards in a state of angry resentment, which would not suffer him to take his turn at riding, when Gilbert came up with him on the pony. Ben stooped his head and rounded his shoulders with a look of dogged determination, and bade Gilbert ride on like the fine gentleman he was; for his part, he would take off his shoes and stockings, and walk home barefoot like a tramp. It was all in vain that Gilbert explained and entreated. Ben sat down on a heap of stones by the roadside, and, ridding himself of his shoes and stockings, set his bare feet upon the dusty ground, with a glance of contempt at Gilbert's polished boots. In a few moments the pony had cantered out of sight; and the long, lonely, heated road stretched before Ben, as he trudged sulkily and uncomfortably along it, with his shoes under his arm instead of upon his feet.

The way home lay through Botfield; and the women who were leaning over their garden wickets, gossiping in the cool of the evening, stared hard at the barefooted boy, and laughed as they bade him 'Good evening.' Bess Cole was washing at her cottage door, and ran to meet him to send a message to Annie, and she begged that he would let her wash his feet, and make them comfortable before he went farther on; but Ben would not listen to her. A little beyond the village he met Dora, with one of her companions from Church Cloverley, riding on their ponies; but, though she glanced indignantly at him, she passed by as if she did not know him. It was the last provocation to Ben's anger; and, as he sauntered along more slowly than before, he felt as if he hated all England, and everything that lived in the country.

In this mood he reached All Cloverley, and saw the upper window of Helmeth Lodge rising above the lime trees which grew behind it. He stopped to look at it for a minute or two, and leaned against an old mossy wall, which enclosed the homestead of their next-door neighbour, the Miss Reynolds who had paid Bess Cole eightpence a day for weeding. The garden and orchard lay close beneath the nursery window at Helmeth Lodge; but neither Dora nor Gilbert had ever set their feet within the old wall and the crazy gate, which seldom turned upon its rusty hinges. The house itself was falling into decay; and three storeys of blank, uncurtained windows, with many broken panes in them, looked out upon the neglected garden; but no face was ever seen at them, except the grey and grim face of the lady who dwelt in the desolate building, with no other companion than a gaunt, bad-tempered servant, who was always at war with Martha Fern. When Mrs. Ludlow had first settled at Helmeth Lodge, she had made several efforts to become acquainted with her neighbour, but her advances had been rudely repulsed; and to Dora and Gilbert, Cloverley Old Hall had been a place of mystery from their earliest childhood.

Ben was still leaning against the wall, listlessly delaying the moment when he should have to enter his aunt's dwelling barefooted, for his pride would not suffer him to put on his shoes and stockings again, when he heard on the other side a sound so unlike any which had ever caught his quick ear before, that his curiosity was instantly awakened. In a moment he climbed to the top, and stood upon the copestones surveying the kitchen garden of the old mansion. This side of the house looked more inhabited than the front, for the kitchen door opened into a little courtyard separated from the garden by a low paling, and there were signs of life within and without. But Ben's interest was centred upon the sound which had excited his curiosity; and his sharp eye was not long before it fell upon a pig tethered to an apple-tree growing in the middle of a small grass plot, which was cropped bare to the roots as far as the pig's tether would reach. But a creature so famished and miserable, so bony and hollow, such a mere skeleton of a pig, Ben's keen eye had never rested upon. Just beyond the reach of the rope which fastened it to the tree was a bed of young spring cabbages; and it had vainly stretched its tether, until its dim little eyes were starting from their sockets; and the sound that had caught Ben's ear was the low, echoing grunt from its almost strangled throat.

Ben did not hesitate a moment. With a bound which drew after him two of the heavy copestones, he leaped to the ground; and, opening his huge clasp-knife, -- an American knife he proudly called it, -- he severed the rope from the pig's neck. At first, his indignation against England was boiling over; but when the pig rushed head foremost among the cabbages, darting here and there with hot haste, and snatching mouthful after mouthful in frantic delight, such a laugh rang through the evening air as reached Annie in the nursery at Helmeth Lodge, where she was playing with Daisy, and brought Miss Reynolds and her servant in breathless consternation to the kitchen door. There stood the boy, bareheaded and barefooted, his brown, ruddy face glowing with unrepressed merriment; while the famished pig, with its keen, sharp hunger, was revelling, undisturbed by the commotion, in the new luxury of abundant and delicious food.

Before Ben could recover himself from his fit of laughter, both his arms were seized, and he found himself dragged along towards the door of the house, with a violence not altogether agreeable. He did not like to put out his strength, as he would have done if his captors had been men; for Captain Bakewell had taught him that gentleness towards every woman was a necessary part of true courage; so he suffered himself to be borne along without resistance into the kitchen. The grey face of the mistress of the house grew more grim as she frowned at the boy, who was still chuckling with the laughter which he could hardly control; and it was a minute or two before he could answer her questions as to who he was, and where he came from.

'I'm Ben Bakewell,' he said at last, --' Mr. Ludlow's nephew, ma'am. I live at the next house.'

'Mr. Ludlow's nephew!' repeated Miss Reynolds; 'barefooted and bareheaded! You must tell a better tale than that, lad! But, Mr. Ludlow's nephew or no, you shall go to jail for trespassing upon my property and damaging my wall and garden. Climbing over into my grounds, you young rascal! I shall lock you up in one of the attics till Rachel can fetch a policeman from Church Cloverley; and to jail you shall go, as a vagabond and a thief!'

'I'm neither vagabond nor thief!' answered Ben hotly; 'I'm a citizen of the United States of America, and the son of Captain Bakewell. I heard your pig choke as if it was near dying, and I cut the rope that was strangling it. Why, there isn't such a disgraceful pig in all America, not in Cincinnati even: we'd be ashamed to look the universe in the face if we owned such a pig as that. It is only in a poor, paltry, beggarly country like England that such a pig could live at all. But it's getting a meal now; and perhaps you had better set Rachel to catch it again, instead of going off for a policeman.'

'I'll see you safely locked up first,' said Miss Reynolds, with a grim smile, as she and Rachel grasped his arm again, and led him between them up the dusty and creaking staircase. Ben made no effort to escape. He did not dis