d then came
down to such reading of the service and other Sunday occupations
as Aurelia could devise. On the Sunday of her durance it was such
a broiling day that, unable to bear the heat of her parlour, she
established herself and her charges in a nook of the court, close under
the window, but shaded by the wall, which was covered with an immense
bush of overhanging ivy, and by the elm tree in the court. Here she made
Fay and Letty say their catechism, and the Psalm she had been teaching
them in the week, and then rewarded them with a Bible story, that of
Daniel in the den of lions. Once or twice the terrier (whose name she
had learnt was Bob) had pricked his ears, and the children had thought
there was a noise, but the sparrows in the ivy might be accountable for
a great deal, and the little ones were to much wrapped in her tale to be
attentive to anything else.

"Then it came true!" said Letty. "His God Whom he trusted did deliver
him out of the den of lions?"

"God always does deliver people when they trust Him," said Fay, with
gleaming eyes.

"Yes, one way or the other," said Aurelia.

"How do you think He will deliver us?" asked Letty; "for I am sure this
is a den, though there are no lions."

"I do not know how," said Aurelia, "but I know He will bear us through
it as long as we trust Him and do nothing wrong," and she looked up at
the bright sky with hope and strength in her face.

"Hark! what's that?" cried Letty, and Bob leapt up and barked as a great
sob became plainly audible, and within the room appeared Mrs. Loveday,
her face all over tears, which she was fast wiping away as she rose up
from crouching with her head against the window-sill.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said she, her voice still broken when she
rejoined them, "but I would not interrupt you, so I waited within; and
oh, it was so like my poor old mother at home, it quite overcame me! I
did not think there was anything so near the angels left on earth."

"Nay, Loveday," said Fay, apprehending the words in a different sense,
"the angels are just as near us as ever they were to Daniel, only we
cannot see them. Are they not, Cousin Aura?"

"Indeed they are, and we may be as sure that they will shut the lions'
mouths," said Aurelia.

"Ah! may they," sighed Loveday, who had by this time mastered her
agitation, and remembered that she must discharge herself of her
messages, and return hastily to my Lady's toilette.

"I have found the re