very long sermon, difficult for any one to understand, as he
read very feebly, and the words were often puzzling.

[Illustration: 'Her grandmother ... went quietly out of the pew without
a notion but that the child was beside her.'--c. x. p. 153.]

'So, with the hope of getting home again before the Sunday evening,
little Maggie started. She was a gentle, quiet child, and the old people
had no idea but that she was quite happy and liked the long hours in the
church as much as they did. She went to church alone with her
grandmother and the farm-man who drove the cart, and they took with them
a packet of bread-and-butter, or bread-and-jam maybe--what was called "a
piece"--to eat outside the church between the two services. There was
only an hour between them. Maggie looked out for her own people before
she and her grandmother went back into the church again, but they must
have been a little late, and the old lady liked to be in her place in
good time, so the child did not see them. But she thought to herself
she'd be sure to meet them after church, and this thought kept her
quiet, though she couldn't possibly get a glimpse of them from her
corner of the high pew, even if she had dared to look about. She must
have been very tired, and she had cried in bed the night before, and I
daresay the cold air outside made it feel warm in the church, anyway
this was what happened. The poor little thing fell fast asleep. And her
grandmother, who was very blind except with her glasses on--and she
always took them off and put them away when the last psalm had been
sung--went quietly out of the pew without a notion but that the child
was beside her.

'When Maggie woke it was quite dark, the church had been shut up ever so
long; there was no evening service. At first she thought she was in bed,
and that the clothes had tumbled off her, then feeling about, she found
she had her frock and cape and bonnet on, and everything near her was
hard and cold, not like bed at all. And by bits it all came back to her
mind--her last waking thoughts in church, and how she was hoping to see
her mother,--and she began to take in where she was. I've always thought
it was really dreadful for her, and she must have been a brave, sensible
child-- I know she grew up a brave, sensible woman. For, though she
couldn't help crying at first with loneliness and cold and the queer
sort of fear, she soon settled to do the best she could. There was some
moonlight com