e,
and bringing an air of comfort over the dreary little parlour. Then she
was gone for a little bit, and I felt a little more lonely and weary;
and then I heard that cheerful clatter, commonly so grateful to
feminine exhaustion, and the good woman entered with a toasted glow upon
her face, bearing a tray with tea, and such hospitable accompaniments as
she could command. She set them down and came up to me with an air of
determination.

"My dear, you must be a good young lady and take some tea. We all have
our troubles, but a good heart goes a long way."

Her pitying face broke me down. How sadly without feminine sympathy I
had been through all my troubles I had never felt as I felt it now that
it had come. I fairly dropped my head upon her shoulder and sobbed out
the apparently irrelevant remark--

"Dear madam, I have no mother!"

She understood me, and flinging her arms round me sobbed louder than I.
It would have been wicked to offer further resistance. She brought down
pillows, covered them with a red shawl, and propped me up till the
horsehair sofa became an easy couch, and with mixed tears and smiles I
contrived to swallow a few mouthfuls, a feat which she exalted to an act
of sublime virtue.

"And now, my dear," she said, "you will have some warm water and wash
your hands and face and smooth your hair, and go to sleep for a bit."

"I cannot sleep," I said.

But Mrs. Smith was not to be baffled.

"I shall give you something to make you," said she.

And so, when the warm water had done its work, I had to swallow a
sleeping-draught and be laid easily upon the sofa. Her last words as she
"tucked me up" were, oddly enough--

"The tea's brought back a bit of colour to your cheeks, miss, and I will
say you do look pretty in them beautiful sables!"

A very different thought was working in my head as the sleeping-draught
tingled through my veins.

"Will the birds sing at sunrise?"

Nelly, I slept twelve long hours without a dream. It was four o'clock in
the afternoon of Monday when I awoke, and only then, I believe, from the
mesmeric influence of being gazed at. Eleanor! there is only one such
pair of eyes in all the world! George Manners was kneeling by my side.

Abraham was still sacrificing his son upon the wall, but my Isaac was
restored to me. I sat up and flung myself into his arms. It was long,
long before either of us could speak, and, oddly enough, one of the
first things he said was (twitching