e heard when everything else was perfectly still. And
going to bed was always a terror to her. The little creature could not
put her terror into words; but all day long it was as if some powerful
and pitiless enemy was lying in wait to seize her; and as the hour came
when all the household went to bed, and she was forced to creep up her
separate staircase to her lonely room, the terror reached its utmost
height, and she often sprang into bed dressed, and drew the coverings up
above her head, lest she should see or hear something more horrible than
what she could image to herself.

What Joan would have done without Nathan no one can tell. During the
long winter nights, whenever he was sitting with her by the fireside, he
taught her to read, or read aloud to her out of his Bible, which was
yellow and worn with much turning over of its leaves. He could sing a
little still, though now his teeth were gone his voice was weak and
quavering; but he made Joan sing with him, and took care to choose such
hymns as his mistress had been taught when she was a child, knowing well
she could not help hearing them through the unceiled rafters overhead.
The newer hymns which Rhoda had often sung with her young, sweet voice,
old Nathan never sung; and Aunt Priscilla, in her dark, desolate room,
would sit still and listen, and think of the days when she was herself a
child, and go to sleep and dream that she was a child again.

The third Christmas Eve came; the second since Rhoda ran away from her
tranquil home and all who loved her truly. Joan had grown into a very
silent, pale, and sad child, seldom laughing, and with no companion
save old Nathan and a doll he had bought for her in the market-town,
where he went every week instead of Miss Priscilla. She and Nathan could
not sing, "Hark! the herald angels!" because that was one of Rhoda's
favourite hymns; but as they sat together on the settle very quiet, for
both of them were full of sorrowful thoughts, Joan laid her small
fingers timidly on the old man's hard and horny hand.

"Nathan," she said very softly, lest Aunt Priscilla overhead should hear
her, "can I go to-morrow, like Rhoda and me said we would, and look into
the manger for the child Jesus? I know He can't be there, because I'm a
big girl now. But me and Rhoda said we'd go every Christmas morning very
early; and she 'll be thinking of it to-morrow. I'm sure Rhoda 'ill
remember, and think I'm going to look for Him."

"Ay, ay,