Bess coloured with pleasure, and evidently tried her best to be amiable and well-mannered, sitting up nearer and nearer to the fire until her face shone as red as her dress with the heat. Martha moved triumphantly about the house, setting the tea-table, upon which she placed the three china cups, with a gratified glance at the undisguised admiration of Bess; though three common ones had to be laid beside them, for, as Tim was coming, Stephen must fare like grandfather and little Nan. As soon as Tim arrived, she was very busy beating up the batter for the pikelets, and then baking them over the fire; and very soon the little party were sitting down to their feast--Bess declaring politely, between each piece pressed upon her by Martha, that she had never tasted such pikelets, never! At last, when tea was quite finished, and the table carefully lifted back to a safe corner at the foot of the bed, though Martha prudently replaced the china cups in the cupboard, Tim and Stephen drew up their stools to the front of the fire, and a significant glance passed between them. 'Now then, Stevie,' said Tim, 'thee learn me the new hymn Miss Anne sings with us; and let's teach Bess to sing too.' Bess looked round uneasily, as if she found herself caught in a trap; but, as Tim burst off loudly into a hymn tune, in which Stephen joined at the top of his voice, she had no time to make any objection. Martha and the old grandfather, who had been a capital singer in his day, began to help; and little Nan mingled her sweet, clear, childish notes with their stronger tones. It was a long hymn, and, before it was finished, Bess found herself shyly humming away to the tune, almost as if it had been the chorus of one of the pit-bank songs. They sang more and more, until she joined in boldly, and whispered to Martha that she wished she knew the words, so as to sing with them. But the crowning pleasure of the evening was when little Nan, sitting on Stephen's knee, with his fingers stroking her curly hair, sang by herself a new hymn for little children, which Miss Anne had been teaching her. She could not say the words very plainly, but her voice was sweet, and she looked so lovely with her tiny hands softly folded, and her eyes lifted up steadily to Stephen's face, that at last Black Bess burst out into a loud and long fit of crying, and wept so bitterly that none of them could comfort her, until the little child herself, who had been afraid of her before, climbed upon her lap and laid her arms round her neck. She looked up then, and wiped the tears from her face with the corner of her fine apron. 'I had a sister once, just like little Nan,' she said, with a sob, 'and she minded me of her. Miss Anne told me she was singing somewhere among the angels, and I thought she'd look like little Nan. But I'm afraid I shall never go where she is; I'm so bad.'