said timidly, bending over the sweet face resting
on the pillow, "if you please, may I say the 'Lord's Prayer' here with
you?"

Anna answered by grasping Adah's hand, and whispering to her:

"Yes, say it, do."

Then Adah knelt beside her, and Anna's fair hand rested as if in
blessing on her head as they said together, "Our Father."

Adah's sleep was sweet that night in her little room at Terrace
Hill--sweet, not because she knew whose home it was, nor yet because
only the previous night he had tossed wearily upon the self-same pillow
where she was resting so quietly, but because of a heart at peace with
God, a feeling that she had at last found a haven of shelter for herself
and her child, a home with Anna Richards, whose low breathings could be
distinctly heard, and who once as the night wore on moaned so loudly in
her sleep that it awakened Adah, and brought her to the bedside. But
Anna was only dreaming and Adah heard her murmur the name of Charlie.

"I will not awaken her," she said, and gliding back to her own room, she
wondered who was Anna's Charlie, associating him somehow with the letter
she had given, into the care of Mrs. Richards.

CHAPTER XXXIV

ROSE MARKHAM

To Mrs. Richards and her elder daughters Rose Markham was an object of
suspicious curiosity, while the villagers merely thought of Rose Markham
as one far above her position, saying not very complimentary things of
madam and her older daughters when it was known that Rose had been
banished from the family pew to the side seat near the door, where
honest Jim said his prayers, with Pamelia at his side.

For only one Sabbath had Adah graced the Richards' pew, and then it was
all Jim's work. He had driven his wife and Adah first to church, as the
day was stormy, and ere returning for the ladies, had escorted Adah up
the aisle and turned her into the family pew, where she sat unconscious
of the admiring looks cast upon her by those already assembled, or of
the indignant astonishment of Miss Asenath and Eudora when they found
that for one half day at least they must he disgraced by sitting with
their servant. Very haughtily the scandalized ladies swept up the aisle,
stopping suddenly at the pew door as if waiting for Adah to leave; but
she only drew back further into the corner, while Willie held up to
Asenath the picture he had found in her velvet-bound prayer book.

Alas! for the quiet hour Adah had hoped to spend, hallowed by thoughts