"Master Geoffery, Master Geoffery," lisped one laughing urchin, "hide me; there is Alice—she'll not let me go. We are to ride on two great horses; and I shall have a sword, and sister Julia a coach."
Here nurse Alice made her appearance. She had been weeping: tears and entreaties were vain. She asked permission to accompany them; but with a frown Hildebrand Wentworth had chidden her from his presence. Since the loss of her mother, and almost from the time that news had arrived of their father's death, which happened a little while before the birth of Julia, she had borne a mother's part to her little charge; and had it been allowed her, she would gladly have served them without reward.
Fearful of leaving them, she had followed hastily into the room. With a searching glance she eyed the stranger for a while; then suddenly turning to the children, she addressed them with great seriousness and affection.
"Harry, you have not repeated your prayer this morning. Do you think God will take care of you to-day, if you ask Him not?"
Here the rebuked boy grew silent; and with a suffused face, ran to his nurse. Whilst in her lap, he poured out his morning orison. It was a simple but affecting request. Julia knelt also; and Alice, laying a hand on each, blessed the children.
"God of their fathers, I commit them to Thy care!"
She could say no more; loud sobs checked her utterance; but leaning over these little ones, she convulsively clasped them in her embrace.
Old Hardpiece grew unusually busy about matters of no importance, and the hard-featured trooper was seen to brush his brows, as though some unpleasant suspicions had crossed his brain. He raised his arm as he gazed on the children, muttering as he clenched his hand—
"If he dare!"—He then carelessly examined his sword, returning it quickly into its sheath, as the weeping Alice drew
away the children to her own apartment. Old Geoffery now grew more talkative. Leaning his chin upon his hand, and his elbow on the table, he thus proceeded:—