and how near it comes to us! How many
mothers are now parting from their children!"

"God's will be done!" cried Hope, starting up, and standing over his
babe.

"Are you sure, Edward may we feel quite certain that we have done
rightly by our boy in keeping him here?"

"I am satisfied, my love."

"Then I am prepared. How still he is now! How like death it looks!"

"What, that warm, breathing sleep! No more like death than his laugh is
like sin."

And Hope looked about him for pencil and paper, and hastily sketched his
boy in all the beauty of repose, before he went forth again among the
sick and wretched. It was very like; and Hester placed it before her as
she plied her needle, all that long solitary evening.

CHAPTER FORTY TWO.

CHURCH-GOING.

Hester went to church the next Sunday, as she wished, to hear Dr
Levitt's promised plain sermon on the duties of the times. Margaret
gladly staid at home with the baby, thankful for the relief from the
sight of sickness, and for the quiet of solitude while the infant slept.
Edward was busy among those who wanted his good offices, as he now was,
almost without intermission. Hester had to go alone.

Everything abroad looked very strange--quite unlike the common Sunday
aspect of the place. The streets were empty, except that a party of
mourners were returning from a funeral. Either people were already all
in church, or nobody was going. She quickened her pace in the fear that
she might be late, though the bell seemed to assure her that she was
not. Widow Rye's little garden-plot was all covered with linen put out
to dry, and Mrs Rye might be seen through the window, at the wash-tub.
The want of fresh linen was so pressing, that the sick must not be kept
waiting, though it was Sunday. Miss Nares and Miss Flint were in
curl-papers, plying their needles. They had been up all night, and were
now putting the last stitches to a suit of family mourning, which was to
enable the bereaved to attend afternoon church. Miss Nares looked quite
haggard, as she well might, having scarcely left her seat for the last
fortnight, except to take orders for mourning, and to snatch a scanty
portion of rest. She had endeavoured to procure an additional
work-woman or two from among her neighbours, and then from Blickley: but
her neighbours were busy with their domestic troubles, and the Blickley
people wanted more mourning than the hands there could supply; so Miss
Nares and