Around Plas Berwyn also the wind thunders--against Plas Berwyn windows also the ivy-leaves fling themselves plaintively; but there the resemblance ends. The steady light from the lamp outblazes the uncertain, fitful fire-gleams: at Plas Berwyn there are no ghost-faces of the lately dead to haunt the inmates of that cheerful room. They are all sitting round the table on straight-backed chairs--no lolling in armchairs, no stealing of furtive naps on the Sabbath--sitting rather primly, rather Puritanically, reading severely good books. To Bob's palate, the _Hedley Vicarsian_ type of literature is as distasteful as to any other young man of sound head and good digestion, but he succumbs to it meekly, to please his mother; if Sunday came _twice_ a week, I think he would be constrained to rebel. From the kitchen, the servants' voices sound faintly audible above the howling wind, singing psalms. The family are divided between prose and poetry. Miss Brandon is reading a sermon; her sister a hymn. Here it is:-- THE FIRM BANK.[1] "I have a never-failing bank, A more than golden store; No earthly bank is half so rich, How can I then be poor? "'Tis when my stock is spent and gone, And I without a groat, I'm glad to hasten to my bank, And beg a little note. "Sometimes my banker, smiling, says, 'Why don't you oftener come? And when you draw a little note, Why not a larger sum? "'Why live so niggardly and poor?-- Your bank contains a plenty? Why come and take a one-pound note When you might have a twenty? "'Yea, twenty thousand, ten times told, Is but a trifling sum To what your Father hath laid up, Secure in God his Son.' "Since, then, my banker is so rich, I have no cause to borrow: I'll live upon my cash to-day, And draw again to-morrow. "I've been a thousand times before, And never was rejected; Sometimes my banker gives me more Than asked for or expected. "Sometimes I've felt a little proud, I've managed things so clever: But, ah! before the day was done I've felt as poor as ever! "Sometimes with blushes on my face Just at the door I stand; I know if Moses kept me back, I surely must be damned. "I know my bank will never break-- No! it can never fall! The Firm--Three Persons in one God! Jehovah--Lord of All!" A charming mixture of the jocose and familiar, isn't it? "Mother," says Bob, rather abruptly, looking up from a civil-spoken, pleasant little work, entitled "Thou Fool!" which he is perusing (it is generally an understood thing that conversation is not to be included among the Sabbath evening diversions at Plas Berwyn)--"Mother, do you know I don't think I shall try for extension, after all?" The gold-rimmed spectacles make a hasty descent from their elevation upon Mrs. Brandon's high thin nose.