“The temptation is too strong for me.  O Lord! where is Thy peace that I believed in, in my childhood?—­that I hear people speaking of now as if it hushed up the troubles of life, and had not to be sought for—­sought for, as with tears of blood!”

There was no sound nor answer to this wild imploring cry, which Jemima half thought must force out a sign from Heaven.  But there was a dawn stealing on through the darkness of her night.

It was glorious weather for the end of August.  The nights were as full of light as the days—­everywhere, save in the low dusky meadows by the river-side, where the mists rose and blended the pale sky with the lands below.  Unknowing of the care and trouble around them, Mary and Elizabeth exulted in the weather, and saw some new glory in every touch of the year’s decay.  They were clamorous for an expedition to the hills, before the calm stillness of the autumn should be disturbed by storms.  They gained permission to go on the next Wednesday—­the next half-holiday.  They had won their mother over to consent to a full holiday, but their father would not hear of it.  Mrs. Bradshaw had proposed an early dinner, but the idea was scouted at by the girls.  What would the expedition be worth if they did not carry their dinners with them in baskets?  Anything out of a basket, and eaten in the open air, was worth twenty times as much as the most sumptuous meal in the house.  So the baskets were packed up, while Mrs. Bradshaw wailed over probable colds to be caught from sitting on the damp ground.  Ruth and Leonard were to go, they four.  Jemima had refused all invitations to make one of the party; and yet she had a half-sympathy with her sisters’ joy—­a sort of longing, lingering look back to the time when she too would have revelled in the prospect that lay before them.  They, too, would grow up, and suffer; though now they played, regardless of their doom.

The morning was bright and glorious; just cloud enough, as some one said, to make the distant plain look beautiful from the hills, with its floating shadows passing over the golden corn-fields.  Leonard was to join them at twelve, when his lessons with Mr. Benson, and the girls’ with their masters, should be over.  Ruth took off her bonnet, and folded her shawl with her usual dainty, careful neatness, and laid them aside in a corner of the room to be in readiness.  She tried to forget the pleasure she always anticipated from a long walk towards the hills while the morning’s work went on; but she showed enough of sympathy to make the girls cling round her with many a caress of joyous love.  Everything was beautiful in their eyes; from the shadows of the quivering leaves on the wall to the glittering beads of dew, not yet absorbed by the sun, which decked the gossamer web in the vine outside the window.  Eleven o’clock struck.  The Latin master went away, wondering much at the radiant faces of his pupils, and thinking that it was only very young people who could take such pleasure in the “Delectus.”  Ruth said, “Now do let us try to be very steady this next hour,” and Mary pulled back Ruth’s head, and gave the pretty budding mouth a kiss.  They sat down to work, while Mrs. Denbigh read aloud.  A fresh sun-gleam burst into the room, and they looked at each other with glad, anticipating eyes.