my face
with his dark eyes, that seemed to burn into me, and he saith, `Learn
this, Dorothy,--that 'tis the easiest thing in all the world for a man
to drift away from God. Ay, or a woman either. You may do it, and
never know that you have done it,--for a while, at least. David was two
full years ere he found it out. Oh Dorothy, take warning! I was once
as innocent as you are. I have drifted from God, oh my child, how far!
The Lord keep you from a like fate.' I was fairly affrighted, for his
face was terrible. An hour after, I saw him dealing the cards at ombre,
with a look as bright and mirthful as though he knew not grief but by
name."

Phoebe looked up with eyes full of meaning. "Did he never come back?"

"Dear child," said Mrs Dorothy, turning to her, "hast thou forgot that
the Good Shepherd goeth after that which was lost, until He find it? He
came back, my dear. But it was through the Great Plague and the Great
Fire."

It was evident for a few minutes that Mrs Dorothy was wrestling with
painful memories.

"Well, and what then?" said Rhoda, who wanted the story to go on, and
was afraid of what she called preaching.

"Well!" resumed the old lady, more lightly, "then, for three days in the
week I had a dancing-master come to teach me; and twice in the week a
music-master; and all manner of new gowns, and my hair dressed in a
multitude of curls; and my mother's maid to teach me French, and see
that I carried myself well. And when this had gone on a while, my
mother began to carry me a-visiting when she went to see her friends.
For above a year she used a hackney coach; but then my father was made
Doctor, and had a great church given him that was then all the mode; and
my Lady Jennings came up to Town, and finding he had parts, she began to
take note of him, and would carry him in her coach to the Court; and my
mother would then set up her own coach, the which she did. And at
length, the summer before I was one-and-twenty, my Lady Jennings,
without the privity of my father, offered my mother to have me a maid to
one of the Ladies in Waiting on the Queen. From this place, said she,
if I played my cards well, and was liked of them above me, I might come
in time to be a Maid of Honour."

"O rare!" exclaimed Rhoda. "And did you, Mrs Dolly?"

"Yes, child," slowly answered Mrs Dorothy. "I did so."

Rhoda's face was sparkling with interest and pleasure. Phoebe's was
shadowed with forebodings, of a s