I do truly feel ashamed
that I have no better done my duty, and I entreat you not--"

"I was not faulting thee, lad," said Temperance. "We have already laden
thee with books; and it were too much to look for thee to do thine own
duty and other folks' too. It's this lazy lad I want. I dare be bound
he loveth better to crack jests with his cousins than to be dutiful to
his old mother and aunts."

"Temperance, I am only thirty-nine," said Faith in an injured voice. "I
am the youngest of us three."

"Oh deary me! I ask your pardon," cried Temperance, with a queer set of
her lips. "Yes, Madam, you are; Edith is an old woman of forty, and I a
decrepit creature of forty-five; but you are a giddy young thing of
thirty-nine. I'll try to mind it, at least till your next birthday."

Lettice laughed, and Aunt Temperance did not look angry, though she
pulled a face at her. Edith smiled, and said pleasantly--

"Come, Aubrey, hand thy mother on my side; I will walk with Lettice and
Hans."

"Aunt Edith," said Lettice, "pray you, why be those candlesticks on the
holy table, with never a candle in them?"

"I cannot tell, Lettice," replied she; "I fear, if the parson dared,
there would be candles in them, and belike will, ere long."

"Think you Aunt Joyce is right in what she said last night?"

"I fear so, Lettice," she answered very gravely. "We have not yet seen
the last, I doubt, of Satan and his Roman legion."

The same afternoon, Lettice had a talk with old Rebecca, which almost
frightened her. She went up to the gallery for another look at the two
pictures, and Rebecca passing by, Lettice begged that if she were not
very busy, she would tell her something about them. In reply she heard
a long story, which increased her reverential love for the dead
grandfather, and made her think that "Cousin Anstace" must have been an
angel indeed. Rebecca had lived in the Hill House for sixty years, and
she well remembered her mistress's sister.

"Mind you Queen Mary's days, Rebecca?" asked Lettice.

"Eh, sweet heart!" said the old servant. "They could ne'er be forgot by
any that lived in them."

"Saw you any of the dreadful burnings?"

"Ay, did I, Mrs Lettice," said she,--"even the head and chief of them
all, of my Lord's Grace of Canterbury. I saw him hold forth his right
hand in the flame, that had signed his recantation: and after all was
over, and the fire out, I drew nigh with the crowd, and beheld his heart
en