t it, that she
often got up and went to see that all was safe. The servants thought the
fright had hurt her wits, and let her be, but Rupert, the boy, stood by
her and never was afraid of her queer ways. She was 'a pious maid,' the
book says, and often spent the long evenings reading the Bible, with her
brother by her, all alone in the great room, with no one to help her
bear her secret, and no good news of her father. At last, word came that
the king was dead and his friends banished out of England. Then the
poor children were in a sad plight, for they had no mother, and the
servants all ran away, leaving only one faithful old man to help them."

"But the father did come?" cried Roxy, eagerly.

"You'll see," continued Eph, half telling, half reading.

"Matilda was sure he would, so she sat on in the big chair, guarding the
papers, and no one could get her away, till one day a man came with her
father's ring and told her to give up the secret. She knew the ring, but
would not tell until she had asked many questions, so as to be very
sure, and while the man answered all about her father and the king, she
looked at him sharply. Then she stood up and said, in a tremble, for
there was something strange about the man: 'Sir, I doubt you in spite of
the ring, and I will not answer till you pull off the false beard you
wear, that I may see your face and know if you are my father's friend or
foe.' Off came the disguise, and Matilda found it was my lord himself,
come to take them with him out of England. He was very proud of that
faithful girl, I guess, for the old chair still stands in the castle,
and the name keeps in the family, Pa says, even over here, where some of
the Bassetts came along with the Pilgrims."

"Our Tilly would have been as brave, I know, and she looks like the old
picter down to Grandma's, don't she, Eph?" cried Prue, who admired her
bold, bright sister very much.

"Well, I think you'd do the settin' part best, Prue, you are so patient.
Till would fight like a wild cat, but she can't hold her tongue worth a
cent," answered Eph; whereat Tilly pulled his hair, and the story ended
with a general frolic.

When the moon-faced clock behind the door struck nine, Tilly tucked up
the children under the "extry comfortables," and having kissed them all
around, as Mother did, crept into her own nest, never minding the little
drifts of snow that sifted in upon her coverlet between the shingles of
the roof, nor the s