hymns, and enjoyed Scripture stories, making
remarks that caused her to reverence him; and though backward, idle, and
sometimes very passionate, his was exactly the legitimate character for a
child, such as she could deal with and love. She was as complete a slave
to the two little ones as their father could have been; all her habits
were made to conform to their welfare and pleasure, and very happy she
was, but the discipline was more decided than they had been used to;
there were habits to be formed, and others to be broken, and she was not
weak enough not to act up to her duty in this respect, even though her
heart was winding round that sunny-faced boy as fast as it had ever clung
to his father. The new Owen Sandbrook, with his innocent earnestness,
and the spiritual light in his eyes, should fulfil all her dreams!

Christmas had passed; Mr. Sandbrook had begun to write to his children
about seeing them soon; Lucilla's slow hemming was stimulated by the hope
of soon making her present; and Honora was marvelling at her own
selfishness in dreading the moment when the little ones would be no
longer hers; when a hurried note of preparation came from Captain
Charteris. A slight imprudence had renewed all the mischief, and his
patient was lying speechless under a violent attack of inflammation.
Another letter, and all was over.

A shock indeed! but in Honora's eyes, Owen Sandbrook had become chiefly
the children's father, and their future was what concerned her most. How
should she bear to part with his darlings for ever, and to know them
brought up in the way that was not good, and which their father dreaded,
and when their orphanhood made her doubly tender over them?

To little Owen it was chiefly that papa was gone 'up there' whither all
his hymns and allegories pointed, and at his age, all that he did not
actually see was much on a par; the hope of meeting had been too distant
for the extinction of it to affect him very nearly, and he only
understood enough to prompt the prettiest and most touching sayings,
wondering about the doings of papa, mamma, and little baby among the
angels, with as much reality as he had formerly talked of papa among the
French.

Lucilla heard with more comprehension, but her gay temper seemed to
revolt against having sorrow forced on her. She would not listen and
would not think; her spirits seemed higher than ever, and Honora almost
concluded that either she did not feel at all, or