ere was a worse. She dreamt she saw the girl, wandering,
lost; and that she saw her son in high places, prosperous--but with
more than blood on his soul. She saw her son dragged down by the
clinging girl into some pit of horrors into which she dared not look,
but from whence his father's voice was heard, crying aloud, that in
his day and generation he had not remembered the words of God, and
that now he was "tormented in this flame." Then she started in sick
terror, and saw, by the dim rushlight, Sally, nodding in an arm-chair
by the fire; and felt her little soft warm babe, nestled up against
her breast, rocked by her heart, which yet beat hard from the effects
of the evil dream. She dared not go to sleep again, but prayed. And
every time she prayed, she asked with a more complete wisdom, and
a more utter and self-forgetting faith. Little child! thy angel
was with God, and drew her nearer and nearer to Him, whose face is
continually beheld by the angels of little children.

CHAPTER XVI

Sally Tells of Her Sweethearts, and Discourses on the Duties of Life

Sally and Miss Benson took it in turns to sit up, or rather, they
took it in turns to nod by the fire; for if Ruth was awake she lay
very still in the moonlight calm of her sick bed. That time resembled
a beautiful August evening, such as I have seen. The white, snowy
rolling mist covers up under its great sheet all trees and meadows,
and tokens of earth; but it cannot rise high enough to shut out the
heavens, which on such nights seem bending very near, and to be the
only real and present objects; and so near, so real and present, did
heaven, and eternity, and God seem to Ruth, as she lay encircling her
mysterious holy child.

One night Sally found out she was not asleep.

"I'm a rare hand at talking folks to sleep," said she. "I'll try on
thee, for thou must get strength by sleeping and eating. What must
I talk to thee about, I wonder. Shall I tell thee a love story or a
fairy story, such as I've telled Master Thurstan many a time and many
a time, for all his father set his face again fairies, and called it
vain talking; or shall I tell you the dinner I once cooked, when Mr
Harding, as was Miss Faith's sweetheart, came unlooked for, and we'd
nought in the house but a neck of mutton, out of which I made seven
dishes, all with a different name?"

"Who was Mr Harding?" asked Ruth.

"Oh, he was a grand gentleman from Lunnon, as had seen Miss Faith,
and