hall enjoy ourselves!"

"But if Miss Young should be ill, and die!" persisted Mary.

"Pooh! why should she be ill and die, more than Dr Levitt, and Ben, and
our cook, and my cousins, and all that are going to stay behind?
Margaret, I do wish cousin Hester would let us carry the baby with us.
We shall have no lessons to do, you know; and we could play with him all
day long."

"Yes, I wish he might go," said Mary. "But, Margaret, do you not think,
if you spoke a word to papa and mamma, they would let me stay with Miss
Young? I know she would make room for me; for she did for Phoebe, when
Phoebe nursed her; and I should like to stay and help her, and read to
her, even if she should not be ill. I think papa and mamma might let me
stay, if you asked them."

"I do not think they would, Mary: and I had rather not ask them. But I
promise you that we will all take the best care we can of Maria. We
will try to help and amuse her as well as you could wish."

"Come, Mary, we must go!" cried Fanny. "There is papa giving Mr Hope
some money for the poor; people always go away quick after giving money.
Good bye, cousin Margaret. We shall bring you some shells, or
something, I dare say, when we come back. Now let me kiss the baby once
more. I can't think why you won't let him go with us: we should like so
to have him!"

"So do we," said Hester, laughing.

As the door closed behind the Greys, the three looked in each other's
faces. That glance assured each other that they had done right. In
that glance was a mutual promise of cheerful fidelity through whatever
might be impending. There was no sadness in the tone of their
conversation; and when, within two hours, the Greys went by, driven
slowly, because there was a funeral train on each side of the way, there
was full as much happiness in the faces that smiled a farewell from the
windows, as in the gestures of the young people, who started up in the
carriage to kiss their hands, and who were being borne away from the
abode of danger and death, to spend several weeks without doing any
lessons. Often, during this day, was the voice of mirth even heard in
this dwelling. It was not like the mirth of the well-known company of
prisoners in the first French revolution--men who knew that they should
leave their prison only to lose their heads, and who, once mutually
acknowledging this, agreed vainly and pusillanimously to banish from
that hour all sad, all grave thoughts, a