Page 54 (1/1)

So aent the good foster-an Fay claiarden and house The child had been sent home alone on the sudden illness of her nurse, and had been very forlorn, so that her cousin's attention was a great boon to her Hope was incited to come out; but Jenny Bowles kept a jealous watch over her, and treated every one else as an enemy; and before Aurelia's hat was on, ca Her sobs and wailings for her s and caresses, and were only silenced by Molly's asseveration that the black man was at the door ready to take her into the dark room That this was no phanto horror to Aurelia herself No wonder that the little thing clung to her convulsively, and would not let her hand go for the rest of the day, every now and then o ho to her hand, Aurelia was led by Fay round their new abiding place The house was of brick, shaped like the letter H, Dutch, and with a tall wing, at each end of the ed with stone One of these square wings was appropriated to Aurelia and her charges, the other to the recluse Mr Belaarden front, was roofed over, and paved with stone, descending in several broad shallow steps at the centre and ends, guarded at each angle by huge carved eagles, the crest of the builder, of the ular patchwork, and kept, in spite of the owner's non-residence, in perfect order The strange thing was that this fair and stately place, basking in the sunshine of early June, should be left in co, the three children, and the girl, who felt as though in a kind of prison

The sun was too hot for Aurelia to go out of doors till late in the day, when the shadow of the house ca on one, with A an old German lullaby of Nannerl's, which see the child, who at last fell into a doze Aurelia had let her voice die away, and had begun to think over her strange situation, when she was startled by a laugh behind her, and looking round, hardly repressed a start or screaaro--over the low-sashed door