what a great infinite peace seemed brooding over all--a peace such as
millions of weary souls were longing to possess; not a sound to be
heard, not a ripple of unrest--only that wondrous calm. For a long
time Miss Latimer stood drinking in the sweetness and beauty of the
nature-world, and letting her thoughts soar up, upwards to the great
Father of all, who neither slumbers nor sleeps. What those thoughts
were we do not know; but surely some of that vast peace must have
stolen softly, silently, into her patient heart, for when she turned
away and entered a tiny bedroom leading off from her sanctum, Aunt
Judith's face seemed as it were the face of an angel.

CHAPTER V.

A FALLEN QUEEN.

Next morning Nellie set out for school in apparently the best of
spirits, returning Aunt Judith's encouraging smile with one as bright
and hopeful, and shouting a merry farewell as she ran lightly down the
garden path and closed the little gate behind her.

Arriving fully ten minutes before the hour, she found several of the
girls already assembled in the large class-room, gathered as usual in
knots, and talking gaily to one another.

"Good-morning," said Agnes Drummond, coming forward and holding out her
hand in a friendly manner. "You are going to be a punctual pupil, Miss
Latimer." And the other scholars, not being overpowered as yet by
Ada's presence, nodded blithely and allowed their new school-mate to
join in the general conversation.

While girlish tongues were busy and the room was filled with the hum of
merry voices, the great bell rang loudly, and at the same moment Winnie
came rushing in, crying half breathlessly as she did so, "Just in time,
girls; not a minute too soon. Good-morning, everybody. Do I look as
if I had been having a good race?" and she turned her piquant face
round for a general survey.

"A species of milk-maid bloom," said Ada Irvine, catching the words as
she leisurely entered the room, "which makes you appear more suited to
your friend of the dairy-maid type;" and Miss Irvine looked insolently
at Nellie's fresh bright face as she spoke. The soft tints on the
smooth, rounded cheek deepened, and the girl bit her lip hard to keep
back the angry words.

Not so Winnie, however. Turning a pair of great, serious eyes on her
haughty school-mate's fair, placid countenance, she said with an air of
prophetic solemnity,--

"Ada Irvine, you will yet be rewarded for all your contemptuous
speeches