When the chapter was done, they all knelt down, and uncle Nathan poured forth the fullness of his faith in a prayer, that went over the child's heart like the summer wind upon a water-lily, stirring all its young thought to their gentle depths, as the fragrant leaves of the lily give forth their sweetness. Two or three times she heard aunt Hannah murmur some words uneasily, as if a thought, at variance with her brother's prayer, disturbed her. But directly the child was enwrapped, heart and soul, in the earnest words that fell from the old man's lips, and when she stood up again, her face had a sort of glory in its expression. It was the first night in a long, long time that Mary had been so near heaven. And this was the kind of home which Enoch Sharp had given to the orphan. Did she sleep well? If grateful thoughts can summon angels, many bright spirits hovered over her little bed that night. But aunt Hannah never closed her eyes. CHAPTER XXX. MORNING AT THE OLD HOMESTEAD. Awake, poor orphan girl, awake! The wild birds flutter free, And all the trumpet blossoms quake, Amid the tuneful glee. Mary Fuller was aroused from her sleep the next morning by the most heavenly sound that had ever met her ear. It was a wild gush of song, from the birds that had a habit of sleeping in the old trumpet-flower vine, and among the apple-trees back of the house. She began to smile even in her sleep, and awoke with a thrill of new and most delicious pleasure. Out from the old porch and distant trees came this wild gush of song, to which the river with its soft chiming, made a perpetual accompaniment. She drew a deep breath tremulous with pleasure and reluctantly opened her eyes. Aunt Hannah was standing before a little upright looking-glass, combing out her long grey hair with a ferocious-looking horn comb, which she swept through those sombre tresses deliberately as a rake gathers dry hay from the meadow. The paper curtains were partly rolled up, and one of the small sashes was open, admitting a current of fresh air and the bird's songs together. These two blessings, which God gives alike to all, aunt Hannah received as she did her daily bread, without a thought and as a necessary thing; but to the child they made a heaven of the little attic chamber. This was not alone because habit had familiarized one to a bright circulation of mountain air and mountain music, and the other to the sluggish atmosphere and repulsive scents inseparable from the poverty-stricken districts of a city. Temperament had more to do with it than habit. Mary, with her sensitive nature, never could have breathed such air, or listened to those melodious sounds, without a feeling of delight such as ordinary persons never know. Thus it happened, while aunt Hannah was busy twisting up her hair and changing her short nightgown for a calico dress, that Mary closed her eyes again, and a tear or two stole from beneath their long lashes.