th her in the parlour; and she was far more particular in keeping
them to their reading and spelling, than her brother was with his
boys. Sally, too, put in her word of instruction from the kitchen,
helping, as she fancied, though her assistance was often rather
_malapropos_; for instance, she called out, to a little fat, stupid,
roly-poly girl, to whom Miss Benson was busy explaining the meaning
of the word quadruped,

"Quadruped, a thing wi' four legs, Jenny; a chair is a quadruped,
child!"

But Miss Benson had a deaf manner sometimes when her patience was not
too severely tried, and she put it on now. Ruth sat on a low hassock,
and coaxed the least of the little creatures to her, and showed it
pictures till it fell asleep in her arms, and sent a thrill through
her, at the thought of the tiny darling who would lie on her breast
before long, and whom she would have to cherish and to shelter from
the storms of the world.

And then she remembered, that she was once white and sinless as
the wee lassie who lay in her arms; and she knew that she had gone
astray. By-and-by the children trooped away, and Miss Benson summoned
her to put on her things for chapel.

The chapel was up a narrow street, or rather _cul-de-sac_, close by.
It stood on the outskirts of the town, almost in fields. It was built
about the time of Matthew and Philip Henry, when the Dissenters were
afraid of attracting attention or observation, and hid their places
of worship in obscure and out-of-the-way parts of the towns in which
they were built. Accordingly, it often happened, as in the present
case, that the buildings immediately surrounding, as well as the
chapels themselves, looked as if they carried you back to a period
a hundred and fifty years ago. The chapel had a picturesque and
old-world look, for luckily the congregation had been too poor
to rebuild it, or new-face it, in George the Third's time. The
staircases which led to the galleries were outside, at each end of
the building, and the irregular roof and worn stone steps looked
grey and stained by time and weather. The grassy hillocks, each with
a little upright headstone, were shaded by a grand old wych-elm.
A lilac-bush or two, a white rose-tree, and a few laburnums, all
old and gnarled enough, were planted round the chapel yard; and
the casement windows of the chapel were made of heavy-leaded,
diamond-shaped panes, almost covered with ivy, producing a green
gloom, not without its sol