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A severe undertaking it was Piles of yellow letters, files of dusty accounts, multitudes of receipts, more than one old will had to be conned it was possible to be certain they were not the nostrum In the utter solitude, even this occupation would have been valuable, but with the little girls about her, and her own and their property, she had alternative eh to make it an effort to apply herself to this

Why should she? she asked herself more than once; but then ca to obey and gratify ood will, and if Sir Amyas should indeed hold out till Mr Wayland came home--Her heart beat wildly at the vision of hope

She worked principally at the letters, after the children had gone to bed, taking a packet up stairs with her, and sitting in the bedrooht of the candles that Loveday had brought her

Every es from her Ladyship, that it was time Miss submitted; but she was not at all substantially unkind, and showed increasing interest in her captive, though always i on her that her obstinacy was all in vain My Lady was angered enough at his Honour having got up froone off to Car her father into trouble she laddened rather than startled Aurelia, though her heart sank within her when she arned that Mr Wayland had been taken by the corsairs, so that my Lady would have the ball at her own foot now The tered

The confine to all three, who had been used to run about in the green park and breezy fields; but Aurelia did her best to keep her little companions happy and busy, and the sense of the insecurity of her tenure of their coood temper and sweetness the various rubs incidental to their captivity in this close war she had felt at her own fretfulness, when she thought she had lost the way to impatience if they were troublesoentle and equable now, in the strength of her resolution, than she had been when uplifted by her position, yet doubtful of its mysteries