"That is well, my love," said my oldest cousin, to whom I looked in anxiety. "These tears will relieve your mother, and she will sleep, and all the better if she knows you are at rest. Go, my child." I was used to obey, and my kind motherly cousin inspired confidence by her very tone. I undressed, put on the dry warm flannels provided for me, and crept into the bed, on which Blanchon was already established. Oh, the delicious depths of that English bed! I thought I should lie awake to listen to the sounds from the next room, but I was worn-out, and fell asleep before my head was fairly on the pillow. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IX. IN JERSEY. I SLEPT till afternoon, and when I waked I could not at first tell where I was, everything about me was so utterly different from anything I had been used to. My bed was surrounded by light curtains of blue and white checked linen, and through these at the foot I could see that the hangings of the latticed window were of the same. The bed was covered with a white spread worked with a curious pattern in colored crewels. Everything was very quiet, but I could hear the distant hum of a spinning-wheel, and the singing of a robin outside my window. I lay quietly a long time, half asleep and dreaming, half bewildered, feeling as if I had died and wakened into a new world, of which all I knew was that it was safe and friendly. At last I raised myself, put aside the curtain, and looked out. The room was small, very little larger than the one I had inhabited—oh, how long ago—but it was very different. The window was not a mere slit almost lost in the thickness of the wall, but a peaceful lattice, broad and low, into which, late as it was, looked a cluster of noisette roses. The floor was of boards instead of tiles, and covered here and there with rugs, evidently of home construction. A little table stood at the head of the bed, on which were placed a bright brass candlestick, a Bible and prayer-book, and a little cup of flowers, and a shelf on the wall held a slender row of volumes. On an arm-chair near the bed was laid a change of clean linen, and beside it a mourning frock. The sight of that black frock brought back to my mind all that had passed in the last twenty-four hours. I had been through so much, and the need of action had been so instant, that I had had no time, as it were, to feel what I had lost, but now it came upon me in one moment. My father was dead—murdered by the very man whom he had saved from the effects of what he believed to be a false accusation. His body lay unburied at this moment, a prey to wild animals or more savage men. My mother and myself were exiles in a strange land, never again to see the home where I had grown-up, and where I had lived so happily, in spite of uncertainty and danger. "Oh, if my father were but here, I would not care for anything else!" I sobbed, and covering my head I wept till I was exhausted, and once more I fell asleep.