a pleasant face, marked by firmness and intelligence, Mrs. Righton was twenty-five or twenty-six, and her pale face showed more than that of her mother the effects of the anxiety and confinement of the siege. Edith and Nelly were sixteen and fifteen respectively, and although pale, the siege had not sufficed to mar their bright faces or to crush their spirits.
"Dear me," Nelly said, "why, you look to me to be quite boys; why, you can't be much older than I am, are you?"
"My dear Nelly," her mother said reprovingly; but Dick laughed heartily.
"I am not much older than you are," he said; "a year perhaps, but not more. I am a midshipman in the Agamemnon. My brother is a year older than I am, and he is gazetted to the Sixty-fourth; so you see, if the times were different, we should be just the right age to be your devoted servants."
"Oh, you can be that now," Nelly said. "I am sure we want them more than ever; don't we, mamma?"
"I think you have more than your share of servants now, Nelly," replied her mother. "We are really most fortunate, Mr. Johnson, in having our ayah still with us; so many were deserted by their servants altogether, and she is an admirable nurse. I do not know what we should do without her, for the heat and confinement make the poor children sadly fractious. We were most lucky yesterday, for we managed to secure a dobee for the day, and you see the result;" and she smilingly indicated the pretty light muslins in which her daughters were dressed. "You see us quite at our best," she said, turning to the boys. "But we have indeed," she went on seriously, "every reason to be thankful. So far, we have not lost any of our party, and there are few indeed who
