"Let us trust in the Lord and try to sleep," said a pious old lady who had laid herself calmly down beside her grandchildren. "We need rest to strengthen us for the morrow's duties and trials; most of us profess to be Christians, and why should we not be able to feel that we are safe in our Father's hands?
"'Not walls nor hills could guard so well
Old Salem's happy ground;
As those eternal arms of love
That every saint surround.'"
A silence fell upon the room as the sweet old voice ceased, even Mrs. Barbour being shamed into momentary quiet.
Clare laid her babe down, stretched herself beside it and the older children, and her regular breathing soon told that she slept.
But Nell still sat with Bertie's head in her lap, her face hidden in her hands, while tears trickled between the white slender fingers, for her thoughts had gone back to her murdered friend.
"I shall never see him again in this world," she was saying to herself, "and oh, shall I meet him in another? Why, why did I never speak to him of Jesus? Now it is too late, too late!"
Some one sat down beside her and a voice said in low, rich tones, "I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about! Dear Miss Nell, some trust in chariots and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God."