been graver. For the life of me, I shouldn't have known what to say to her. I'm sure I couldn't so much as tell what the Fourth Commandment is about."

"I suppose Esther can," replied one of the maids, with a laugh, glancing at a gentle-looking girl, who was one of the readers.

Esther coloured crimson, but said nothing, till Jane put the question to her directly, asking"Can't you tell us, Esther?"

Then she said, "It's about keeping the Sabbath day holy," and she took up her book, and left the hall.

Straight upstairs went Esther, into her own little room in the turret, the next to that in which Nellie had slept. There, shutting and locking the door, she threw herself on her knees by her little bed, and burst into tears.

"Oh, God," she cried, " my wretched cowardice! How often I have felt the same thing, and yet never had courage to say so. And I am put to shame by this child, years younger than I am, yet so much stronger in grace."

Meanwhile Jane remarked to her fellow-servants, that "if Mrs. Jolliffe and Soper had got a young saint to wait upon them, she did not quite see how things were going to turn out. She'd always heard say that saints and sinners had such different ways." At which there was a general laugh, in which, Esther not being there, the other maids all joined.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.

MONTH passed, and by this time, short as it was, Nellie had learned what her duties were, and had grown accustomed to their regular fulfilment. They were not very difficult, and she had a great deal of quiet time, when she could sit for hours, in the little room leading out of the day-nursery, working at her needle. Mrs. Soper set her work every day, hemming and sewing, and unpicking, and doing all the easier parts of "Master Audley's" wardrobe, as the son and heir of Audley was always called, though he was not yet twelve months old. Nellie liked work, and was clever at it, and Mrs. Stokes had taken much trouble in teaching her, and Soper soon found that so handy a little needlewoman could render her a vast amount of help, of which she did not fail to take advantage.

The pleasantest part of Nellie's day was that in which she was allowed to mind the baby. He was generally asleep when he was given into her charge; but even in his sleep he was most fascinating to Nellie, and the proudest and happiest

moments of her life at Audley Park were those which she spent, work in hand, by the side of the baby's cot. She was always so happy when Mrs. Jolliffe called to her to bring her work and come and sit by Master Audley while he slept; always so sorry when his moving obliged her to ring the nursery bell, according to order, to summon Mrs. Jolliffe upstairs; always so glad when the summons was not immediately answered, and she had time to stand by the cot and watch that first bewitching waking of the lovely baby boy. It was so delightful to Nellie to see him wake with the bright flush of sleep on his soft rounded cheek, whilst he would open his large dark eyes full upon her, and part his rosy lips into a smile—a slow, meditative smile, such as babies give after long and earnest looking into the face beside them. No baby lips had ever smiled on Nellie before; she had never known the delights which are so common to those who have little brothers and sisters of their own; and when this beautiful baby first smiled in her face, her warm, loving nature gushed forth in a flow of love to meet the smile, and it was all she could do to restrain herself from catching him up in her arms, and hugging him to her breast. But Mrs. Jolliffe's orders were that he was never to be taken up till she came, and these orders Nellie obeyed as strictly as she did all others. Baby was allowed to lie and smile, and Nellie would talk to him, and make him crow till Mrs. Jolliffe came.

One day, however, she was longer than usual in replying to the bell, and baby grew weary of

smiling, and cried loudly and lustily, and Nellie's face was flushed with fear and with the efforts to amuse him before the nurse arrived. Then she scolded Nellie for letting him cry, and told her, "of course, she should have taken him up ;" and though she felt a little grieved at what she considered an unjust reproof, she was very thankful to have the liberty granted which she had often longed to possess; and after that, many a happy half hour did she spend, walking up and down the long nursery with that dear baby in her arms.

Mrs. Jolliffe used to declare sometimes he was getting "quite a lump," and "it was enough to break any one's back to have to carry him "; but either Nellie was very strong, or she loved the burden too well to feel its weight, for she never wearied of those walks, and the oftener she could enjoy them the better she was pleased.

At length a shadow passed over this bright bit of sunshine in Nellie's life at the Park. Into this sweet cup a drop of bitter fell, which took off the pleasant taste. Nellie began to fear that there was something wrong in these watchings of hers over the baby. Her suspicions were first aroused by a remark she fancied she heard Mrs. Audley make to Jolliffe. Mrs. Audley was the object of so much admiration to little Nellie, that more than once the child had remembered the second commandment when thinking of her, or looking at her, and said to herself that it was forbidden to worship any image, however fair.

The feelings that the lovely lady at the Park

called forth in Nellie's little mind were altogether different from those excited by Mrs. Stancombe, the dear, good lady at the Rectory, with her sweet face and gentle voice, whom Nellie loved so truly. She did not love Mrs. Audley-she had never drawn near enough to her for that, but when that lady came into her presence, and Nellie looked at her in her beauty, so wonderfully lovely as she certainly was, and watched the queenly dignity of her manner, the exquisite grace of her movements, the imaginative child felt as if she could have fallen down and worshipped her. She seemed to her to be more a realization of the beings of whom she had read long ago in her favourite fairy tales, than to be anything of earthly mould; and there was never any need to tell Nellie to stand up respectfully when Mrs. Audley swept past her, her long silk or velvet robe trailing across the soft carpet. Nellie never thought of her as her mistress. Mrs. Jolliffe was that; Mrs. Audley was like a queen to her, and her visits to the nursery lived in Nellie's remembrance for days after she had paid them. These visits certainly had something royal in them, for they were, as we say of the visits of other superior beings, "few, and far between."

Master Audley was carried constantly to his mamma―in the early mornings, while she was dressing-after luncheon, while the upper servants were at dinner, and before she took her carriage drive-and again on her return from driving, before she dressed for dinner, and whilst Mrs. Jolliffe and Soper were taking their tea.