and recrossed each other; with wainscoted walls, and a
carved chimney-piece of almost black oak. A sombre place in gloomy
weather, yet so decorated with old china vases, and great brass salvers,
and silver cups and tankards catching every ray of light, that the whole
room glistened in this bright May-day. In the broad cushioned seat
formed by the sill of the oriel window, which was almost as large as a
room itself, there sat the elder Mrs. Sefton, Roland Sefton's foreign
mother, with his two children standing before her. They had their hands
clasped behind them, and their faces were turned toward her with the
grave earnestness children's faces often wear. She was giving them their
daily Bible lesson, and she held up her small brown hand as a signal to
Phebe to keep silence, and to wait a moment until the lesson was ended.

"And so," she said, "those who know the will of God, and do not keep it,
will be beaten with many stripes. Remember that, my little Felix."

"I shall always try to do it," answered the boy solemnly. "I'm nine
years old to-day; and when I'm a man I'm going to be a pastor, like
your father, grandmamma; my great-grandfather, you know, in the Jura.
Tell us how he used to go about the snow mountains seeing his poor
people, and how he met with wolves sometimes, and was never frightened."

"Ah! my little children," she answered, "you have had a good father, and
a good grandfather, and a good great-grandfather. How very good you
ought to be."

"We will," cried both the children, clinging round her as she rose from
her chair, until they caught sight of Phebe standing in the doorway.
Then with cries of delight they flew to her, and threw themselves upon
her with almost rough caresses, as if they knew she could well bear it.
She received them with merry laughter, and knelt down that their arms
might be thrown more easily round her neck.

"See," she said, "I was up so early, while you were all in bed, finding
May-roses for you, with the May-dew on them. And if your father and
mother will let us go, I'll take you up the river to the osier island;
or you shall ride my Ruby, and we'll go off a long, long way into the
country, us three, and have dinner in a new place, where you have never
been. Because it's Felix's birthday."

She was still kneeling on the floor, with the children about her, when
the door opened, and the same troubled and haggard face, which had
peered out upon her under the archway, looked into