a corner of a chest, or a gleam on the side
of a meal bag; the half light showed nothing clearly except the confused
fulness of the little attic. Nettie had given her head a blow against a
piece of timber as she came through it; and she sat down upon her
little bed, feeling rather miserable. Her fear was that the rats might
visit her up there. She did not certainly know that there were rats in
the attic, but she had been fearing to think of them and did not dare to
ask; as well as unwilling to give trouble to her mother; for if they
_did_ come there, Nettie did not see how the matter could be mended. She
sat down on her little bed, so much frightened that she forgot how tired
she was. Her ears were as sharp as needles, listening to hear the scrape
of a rat's tooth upon a timber or the patter of his feet over the floor.

For a few minutes Nettie almost thought she could not sleep up there
alone, and must go down and implore her mother to let her spread her bed
in a corner of her room. But what a bustle that would make. Her mother
would be troubled, and her father would be angry, and the lodger would
be disturbed, and there was no telling how much harm would come of it.
No; the peacemaker of the family must not do that. And then the words
floated into Nettie's mind again, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they
shall be called the children of God." Like a strain of the sweetest
music it floated in; and if an angel had come and brought the words
straight to Nettie, she could not have been more comforted. She felt the
rats could not hurt her while she was within hearing of that music; and
she got up and kneeled down upon the chest under the little window and
looked out.

It was like the day that had passed; not like the evening. So purely and
softly the moonbeams lay on all the fields and trees and hills, there
was no sign of anything but peace and purity to be seen. No noise of
men's work or voices; no clangour of the iron foundry which on weekdays
might be heard; no sight of anything unlovely; but the wide beauty which
God had made, and the still peace and light which he had spread over it.
Every little flapping leaf seemed to Nettie to tell of its Maker; and
the music of those words seemed to be all through the still
air--"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children
of God." Tears of gladness and hope slowly gathered in Nettie's eyes.
The children of God will enter in, by and by, through those pear