ft partitioned into two compartments, where they were to
rest, but they were well pleased with their lodging and had hoped for
none so good. The old man was uneasy when he had lain down, and begged
that Nell would come and sit at his bedside as she had done for so many
nights. She hastened to him, and sat there till he slept.

There was a little window, hardly more than a chink in the wall, in her
room, and when she left him, she opened it, quite wondering at the
silence. The sight of the old church, and the graves about it in the
moonlight, and the dark trees whispering among themselves, made her
more thoughtful than before. She closed the window again, and sitting
down upon the bed, thought of the life that was before them.

She had a little money, but it was very little, and when that was gone,
they must begin to beg. There was one piece of gold among it, and an
emergency might come when its worth to them would be increased a
hundred fold. It would be best to hide this coin, and never produce it
unless their case was absolutely desperate, and no other resource was
left them.

Her resolution taken, she sewed the piece of gold into her dress, and
going to bed with a lighter heart sunk into a deep slumber.

CHAPTER 17

Another bright day shining in through the small casement, and claiming
fellowship with the kindred eyes of the child, awoke her. At sight of
the strange room and its unaccustomed objects she started up in alarm,
wondering how she had been moved from the familiar chamber in which she
seemed to have fallen asleep last night, and whither she had been
conveyed. But, another glance around called to her mind all that had
lately passed, and she sprung from her bed, hoping and trustful.

It was yet early, and the old man being still asleep, she walked out
into the churchyard, brushing the dew from the long grass with her
feet, and often turning aside into places where it grew longer than in
others, that she might not tread upon the graves. She felt a curious
kind of pleasure in lingering among these houses of the dead, and read
the inscriptions on the tombs of the good people (a great number of
good people were buried there), passing on from one to another with
increasing interest.

It was a very quiet place, as such a place should be, save for the
cawing of the rooks who had built their nests among the branches of
some tall old trees, and were calling to one another, high up in the
air. F