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weary and exhausted as she was, she felt passive in the hands of the only friend she seemed to have in the world. Yet what was she to do? Was she really to go back to her tale of bricks, and worse than Egyptian bondage?

Nesta left the poor girl to her supper at the Stag, and walked up to the castle where she had left Mr. Stanley. He laughed at her at first, and told her that it was one of her romantic adventures, and then softening at Nesta's real interest in the girl, he told her that she was a good soul, and the most unselfish woman in the world.

Nesta laughed, but said that that was of little use to Rosa, the question was, what to be done with her? She had no home, no one to go to, and literally, when she had found her in the church, she seemed to have gone there as a kind of sanctuary from her

trouble.

6

you

Why don't take her and make a servant of her?' said Mr. Stanley.

'I did think of it,' said Nesta, 'it might be the best thing for her.'

'She's not exactly wanted, I suppose,' added Mr. Stanley, but she could learn under Babette, who I have no doubt will be a fair match for Frau Mässinger, and your poor protegée will have jumped from the frying-pan into the fire.'

'Oh, no! there is no fear of that,' returned Nesta; 'Babette's reign is over. I forgot to tell you so before. She has had her own way a little too long. This very morning I determined to have mine, and the result was a battle. Trifling as the circumstance was, I gave her notice to leave, and her anger at my doing so makes me think she will not even care to remain till her time of service is over.'

Then take the girl by all means; but dont spoil her with kindness, or you will be a worse friend to her than Frau Mässinger.'

So there was one more in the waggon, when they drove home that night by moon

light, and if any heart looked back with thankfulness and happiness to that day, it was Rosa's.

The children were very tired and sleepy, and the two little ones leaned their heads against aunt Nesta nearly all the way home, nodding with every movement of the waggon, and seeing nothing of the clear moon as it shone calmly overhead, and the twinkling stars that came out one by one. To Nesta, it was another prayer in God's larger temple. Her satisfied heart, filled to the brim with its deep human love, drank in with gratitude the sense of peace and repose around her; she was living in the present as so few of us ever do, thankful for small joys, mindful of small blessings, living in the consciousness of that happiness which others lose from the habit of always looking forward. She saw that Rosa was asleep at the bottom of the waggon-poor tired child! too tired perhaps for dreams.

The waggon jolted and rattled again down the hills; the lamps were lighted in the

village inns as they passed through; the work of the day was over. When they

stopped at the Villa it was late, and long past the children's bedtime. So Rosa did not go back to the Mill that night, but waited for the morrow.

CHAPTER XII.

THE HAVEN OF REST.

'Thanks for each kindly word, each silent token,
That teaches me, when seeming most alone,
Friends are around us, though no word be spoken.'

Longfellow.

It

FRAU MÄSSINGER had borne her inconvenience with a patience that would have done honour to a more amiable woman. was a real inconvenience, and therefore easier to endure, for it called forth her energies, and Frau Mässinger was in her element when there was much to be done. It is true she rarely ceased grumbling, but that had become a chronic complaint with her, and when mother didn't talk to herself over her work, little Marie always argued that mother was ill. Some people said that Frau Mässinger would have done more if she grumbled less; but no one could see the amount of

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