to ask, as well as unwilling to give trouble to her mother; for if they did come there, Nettie did not see how the matter could be mended. She sat down on her little bed, so much frightened that she forgot how tired she was. Her ears were as sharp as needles, listening to hear the scrape of a rat's tooth upon a timber, or the patter of his feet over the floor.

For a few minutes Nettie almost thought she could not sleep up there alone, and must go down and implore her mother to let her spread her bed in a corner of her room. But what a bustle that would make! Her mother would be troubled, and her father would be angry, and the lodger would be disturbed, and there was no telling how much harm would come of it. No; the peacemaker of the family must not do that. And then the words floated into Nettie's mind again, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." Like a strain of the sweetest music it floated in; and if an angel had come and brought the words straight to Nettie, she could not have been more comforted. She felt the rats could not hurt her while she was within hearing of that music; and she got up and kneeled down upon the chest under the little window, and looked out.

It was like the day that had passed, not like the evening. So purely and softly the moon-beams lay on all the fields and trees and hills, there was no sign of anything but peace and purity to be seen. No noise of men's work or voices; no clangour of the iron foundry which on week-days might be heard; no sight of anything unlovely; but the wide beauty which God had made, and the still peace and light which He had spread over it. Every little flapping leaf seemed to Nettie to tell of its Maker; and the music of those words seemed to be all through the still air—"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." Tears of gladness and hope slowly gathered in Nettie's eyes. The children of God will enter in, by-and-bye, through those pearly gates, into that city of gold "where they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light."

"So He can give me light here—or what's better than light," thought Nettie. "God isn't only out there, in all that beautiful moonlight world—He is here in my poor little attic too; and He will take just as good care of me as He does of the birds, and better, for I am His child, and they are only His beautiful little servants."

Nettie's fear was gone. She prayed her evening prayer, and trusted herself to the Lord Jesus to take care of her; and then she undressed herself and lay down and went to sleep, just as quietly as any sparrow of them all, with its head under its wing.