was for her father’s sake?  No, her tears must not blot the paper, to distress those loving hearts.  Yet how the drops would come, gathering fast and blinding her!  Presently, through the window, came the sweet mysterious strains of the violin, not terrifying her as before, but filling her with an inexpressible sense of peace and calmness.  She sat listening almost as one in a dream, with her pen suspended, and when the spell was broken by Molly’s entrance with her supper, she went on in a much more cheerful strain than she had begun.  It was dull, and it was a pity that her grand wardrobe, to say nothing of Betty’s good advice, should be wasted, but her sister would rejoice in her seclusion from the grand, fashionable world, and her heart went out to the poor little neglected children, whose mother could not bear the sight of them.

CHAPTER IX.  THE TRIAD.

    “I know sisters, sisters three.”

Ere many days had passed Aurelia had drifted into what would now be regarded as the duties of a nursery governess to her little companions.

Fay and Amoret were always with her, and depended on her for everything.  Jenny Bowles, with a sort of animal jealousy, tried to monopolise her charge, Letitia.  The child was attracted by the sounds of her sister’s sports, and there was no keeping her from them, or from their cousin.  Then the rude untaught Jenny became cross, moped, showed spite to the other children, and insolence to the young lady, and was fortunately overheard by Mrs. Aylward, and dismissed.  Letty did not seem to mind the loss as Amoret had felt that of her foster-mother, for indeed Jenny had been almost as disagreeable to her as to the others during these days of jealousy.

The triad were not much alike:  Amoret was the largest of the three, plump, blue-eyed, golden-haired, rosy-cheeked, a picture of the cherub-type of child; Letitia had the delicate Delavie features and complexion; and Fidelia, the least pretty, was pale, and rather sallow, with deep blue eyes set under a broad forehead and dark brows, with hair also dark.  Though the smallest, she was the most advanced, and showed signs of good training.  She had some notion of good manners, and knew as much of her hornbook [a child’s primer consisting of a sheet of parchment or paper protected by a sheet of transparent horn —­D.L.] and catechism as little girls of five were wont to know.  The other two were perfectly ignorant, but Mrs. Aylward procured hornbooks, primers, and slates, and Aurelia began their education in a small way.

It was a curious life.  There was the great empty house, through whose long corridors and vacant rooms the children might wander at will, peeping at the swathed curtains of velvet pile, the rolls of carpet, and the tapestry pictures on the walls, running and shouting in the empty passages, or sometimes, in a fit of nameless fright, taking refuge in Aurelia’s arms.  Or they might play in the stately garden, provided they trod on no borders, and meddled with neither flower nor fruit.  The old gardener began by viewing them as his natural enemies, but soon relaxed in amusement at their pretty sportive ways, gave them many precious spoils, and forgave more than one naughty little inroad, which greatly alarmed their guardian.