"But her heavenly Father, who had guided her so far, was not going to leave her uncared for now. He who had begun the work with her was not going to leave it imperfect. "I am now come nearly to what I may call the end of the first part of my story, and to the end of the young, and sunny, and careless days of the life of dear Evelyn Vaughan. "These careless days, these days of young and comparatively thoughtless happiness, were suddenly finished in a very sad and awful way. "I will not enter into many particulars of that affair, because it will give you pain. In a few words it was this: Late one evening, in the summer, little Francis Barr was playing in the road, when a carriage, coming along at a full gallop, the horses having taken fright and thrown the postillion, came suddenly upon the poor child, knocked him down, and killed him on the spot. There was no time to send the news to the great house; and, as it happened, Evelyn and Fanny went the next morning, before breakfast, to give the little boy his lesson. When arrived at the lodge, they found the door open and no one within. Mrs. Simpson had just gone into the garden to fetch more flowers to lay over the little boy. Not seeing anyone in the kitchen, they walked into the parlour, and there poor Evelyn saw her little loved one cold, yet beautiful, in death, having one small hand closed upon a lily, and the other on a rose. "Evelyn could not mistake the aspect of death; she uttered a wild shriek, and fell senseless to the floor. She was carried home, but she was very ill for many days; and I may truly say never perfectly recovered from that time. "But now, my dear children," added grandmamma, "I begin to feel tired, and have only finished half my story; if all is well, we will come here to-morrow, and then I shall hope to finish it." "I wish it was to-morrow," said Henry: and his sisters joined in the wish. [Illustration: "_To hang flowers round its neck._"--Page 445.] Grandmamma's History of Evelyn Vaughan. Part II. [Illustration: Miss Anne Vaughan led her niece by the hand] When they were all seated, the next day, in the shade of Henry's arbour, grandmamma began her story without more delay. "I am now," she said, "come to the time when I became acquainted with Evelyn Vaughan myself." "I was left early without parents, my dear children; for my father died when I was a baby, and my mother when I was ten years of age. I was sent, after her death, being of course in deep mourning, to the school kept in the old Abbey at Reading, and there was then a very full school, above sixty girls. It was a large old house, added to a gateway which was older still; and it was called The Abbey, because it lay within the grounds of the ancient monastery, the ruins of which still remain, the gateway itself being a part of this very ancient establishment."