When tea was over, Mrs. Arundel asked Hope to ring the bell for prayers; after which they all went into the drawing room, and Mrs. Arundel took up a book of travels she was reading, while the two girls brought their work and listened to her pleasant voice. When she retired, which she did rather early, Hope and Nellie were left together to make the best of each other. They were both rather shy, and the conversation was not as lively as Nellie wished she could have made it. "Shall we go into the garden?" asked Hope. Nellie willingly assented; so they stepped through the glass-door on to the shady lawn. "Here is our favourite place," said Hope, leading the way to a small sheltered seat under the spreading branches of an elm. Nellie did not need telling, and they sat down, and under the influence of the peaceful evening began to feel more at home. "They will miss you very much," said Hope. "I am afraid they will; but mamma wished me so much to come." "Yes, it is always right for the busy one to get a change," said Hope. "I suppose so," answered Nellie doubtfully. "That was partly why my mamma was so pleased for me to come here," resumed Hope. "I was so busy at home all day long, and my next sister had not much opportunity to do what she would otherwise have been willing to do." "You like it, I suppose?" said Nellie, smiling. "Very much indeed. I love dear Mrs. Arundel so much; and so I do 'Aunt Ruth,' as she allows me to call her." "Do you often go home?" "Two or three times a week I run down and say, 'How do you do?' to mamma; but my sister Maude laughingly tells me to keep to my own ground!" "You have plenty of sisters and brothers, haven't you?" "Yes," answered Hope; "but we get along very well. Mamma is very good to us, and tries to forget her own sorrows to cheer us." "That is so like mothers," said Nellie. "Some mothers," answered Hope. "But here is Maude coming across the lawn to welcome you; so you will see some of us to-night, and some to-morrow, and next week we expect our brother Wilmot down from London to spend his holiday; then you will have seen all but one." [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER V. AUNT RUTH. "NOW, Nellie, my dear," said Aunt Ruth, as they were seated together at work in the drawing room the next morning, "tell me all about them at home." Nellie looked up in her aunt's face—a face still young for the actual age; a face that had lived through seas of suffering, but which was the index of a heart that rested now, and ever had rested, on the Rock of Ages. "How can I begin to tell you, dear aunt?" "Anything will be welcome, darling; but first your dear papa." "I think he is just as usual," answered Nellie. "He always is just the same." Aunt Ruth smiled. "Happy for you he is, dear." Nellie looked thoughtfully out of the window into the sunny garden, and then she added, "We think him rather more grey, Aunt Ruth, since uncle's illness and death. I fear he will never wholly get over that."