eart beat wildly at the vision of
hope.

She worked principally at the letters, after the children had gone to
bed, taking a packet up stairs with her, and sitting in the bedroom,
deciphering them as best she might by the light of the candles that
Loveday had brought her.

Every morning Loveday appeared with supplies, and messages from her
Ladyship, that it was time Miss submitted; but she was not at all
substantially unkind, and showed increasing interest in her captive,
though always impressing on her that her obstinacy was all in vain. My
Lady was angered enough at his Honour having got up from his sick bed
and gone off to Carminster, and if Miss did not wish to bring her father
into trouble she must yield. No, this gladdened rather than startled
Aurelia, though her heart sank within her when she was warned that Mr.
Wayland had been taken by the corsairs, so that my Lady would have
the ball at her own foot now. The term of waiting seemed indefinitely
prolonged.

The confinement to the dingy house and courtyard was trying to all
three, who had been used to run about in the green park and breezy
fields; but Aurelia did her best to keep her little companions happy
and busy, and the sense of the insecurity of her tenure of their company
aided her the more to meet with good temper and sweetness the various
rubs incidental to their captivity in this close warm house in the
hottest of summer weather. The pang she had felt at her own fretfulness,
when she thought she had lost them, made her guard the more against
giving way to impatience if they were troublesome or hard to please.
Indeed, she was much more gentle and equable now, in the strength of
her resolution, than she had been when uplifted by her position, yet
doubtful of its mysteries.

Sundays were the most trying time. The lack of occupation in the small
space was wearisome, and Aurelia's heart often echoed the old strains of
Tate and Brady,

I sigh whene'er my musing thoughts
Those happy days present,
When I with troops of pious friends
Thy temple did frequent.

She and her charges climbed up to the window above, which happily had
a broken pane, tried to identify the chimes of the church bells by the
notable nursery rhyme,

Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clements, &c.,

watched the church-goers as far as they could see them, an