ask Miss Fennimore to let you go to your room, dearest,' said
Phoebe. 'You must not play again in dressing time, for there's nothing
so sad as to miss our prayers. You are a good girl to care so much. Had
you time for yours, Bertha?'

'Oh, plenty!' with a toss of her curly head. 'I don't take ages about
things, like Maria.'

'Prayers cannot be hurried,' said Phoebe, looking distressed, and she was
about to remind Bertha to whom she spoke in prayer, when the child cut
her short by the exclamation, 'Nonsense, Maria, about being naughty. You
know I always make you laugh when I please, and that has more to do with
it than saying your prayers, I fancy.'

'Perhaps,' said Phoebe, very sadly, 'if you had said yours more in
earnest, my poor Bertha, you would either not have made Maria laugh, or
would not have left her to bear all the blame.'

'Why do you call me poor?' exclaimed Bertha, with a half-offended,
half-diverted look.

'Because I wish so much that you knew better, or that I could help you
better,' said Phoebe, gently.

There Miss Fennimore entered, displeased at the English sounds, and at
finding them all, as she thought, loitering. Phoebe explained Maria's
omission, and Miss Fennimore allowed her five minutes in her own room,
saying that this must not become a precedent, though she did not wish to
oppress her conscience.

Bertha's eyes glittered with a certain triumph, as she saw that Miss
Fennimore was of her mind, and anticipated no consequences from the
neglect, but only made the concession as to a superstition. Without
disbelief, the child trained only to reason, and quick to detect fallacy,
was blind to all that was not material. And how was the spiritual to be
brought before her?

Phoebe might well sigh as she sat down to her abstract of Schlegel's
Lectures. 'If any one would but teach them,' she thought; 'but there is
no time at all, and I myself do not know half so much of those things as
one of Miss Charlecote's lowest classes.'

Phoebe was a little mistaken. An earnest mind taught how to learn, with
access to the Bible and Prayer Book, could gain more from these
fountain-heads than any external teaching could impart; and she could
carry her difficulties to Robert. Still it was out of her power to
assist her sisters. Surveillance and driving absolutely left no space
free from Miss Fennimore's requirements; and all that there was to train
those young ones in faith, was the manner in whi