like to grow
to clamour.

"Hush! children," said the mother; "it is time for prayers. We will not
wait for papa, because he will be very tired and cold. No, Letty, you
need not get the books, there has been enough reading for the little
ones to-night. We will sing `Jesus, lover of my soul,' and then David
will read the chapter."

"Oh! yes, mamma, `Jesus, lover;' I like that best," said little Mary,
laying her head down on her mother's shoulder, and her little shrill
voice joined with the others all through, though she could hardly speak
the words plainly.

"That's for papa," said she, when they reached the end of the last line,
"While the tempest still is high."

The children laughed, but the mother kissed her fondly, saying softly:

"Yes, love; but let us sing on to the end."

It was very sweet singing, and very earnest. Even their cousin, Francis
Oswald, whose singing in general was of a very different kind, joined in
it, to its great improvement, and to the delight of the rest. Then
David read the chapter, and then they all knelt down and the mother
prayed.

"Not just with her lips, but with all her heart, as if she really
believed in the good of it," thought Francis Oswald to himself. "Of
course we all believe in it in a general way," he went on thinking, as
he rose from his knees and sat down, not on a chair, but on the rug
before the fire; "of course, we all believe in it, but not just as Aunt
Mary does. She seems to be seeing the hand that holds the thing she is
asking for, and she asks as if she was sure she was going to get it,
too. She hasn't a great deal of what people generally are most anxious
to have," he went on, letting his eyes wander round the fire-lighted
room, "but then she is content with what she has, and that makes all the
difference. `A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things
which he possesses,' she told me the other day, and I suppose she
believes _that_, too, and not just in the general way in which we all
believe the things that are in the Bible. Fancy Aunt Ellen and my
sister Louisa being contented in a room like this!"

It was a very pleasant room, too, the lad thought, though they might not
like it, and though there was not an article in it which was in itself
beautiful. It was a large, square room, with an alcove in which stood a
bed. Before the bed was a piece of carpet, which did not extend very
far over the grey painted floor, and in the corner w