Constance bent to kiss her. "No, dear child; there is no necessity for
my taking you in an evening, until my days shall be occupied at Lady
Augusta Yorke's."





CHAPTER VII.


MR. KETCH.

Mrs. Channing sat with her children. Breakfast was over, and she had
the Bible open before her. Never, since their earliest years of
understanding, had she failed to assemble them together for a few
minutes' reading, morning and evening. Not for too long at once; she
knew the value of _not tiring_ young children, when she was leading
them to feel an interest in sacred things. She would take Hamish, a
little fellow of three years old, upon her knee, read to him a short
Bible story, suited to his age, and then talk to him. Talk to him in a
soft, loving, gentle tone, of God, of Jesus, of heaven; of his duties
in this world; of what he must do to attain to everlasting peace in the
next. Day by day, step by step, untiringly, unceasingly, had she thus
laboured, to awaken good in the child's heart, to train it to holiness,
to fill it with love of God. As the other children came on in years,
she, in like manner, took them. From simple Bible stories to more
advanced Bible stories, and thence to the Bible itself; with other
books at times and seasons: a little reading, a little conversation,