Exiles in Babylon or Children of light Author:A. L. O. E. Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " Who can say what, with the blessing of heaven, one Christian family may effect here ?" reflected the clergyman. " The wife seems to have intellect and feeling,... more » and, if I have any power to read a countenance, courage and energy lie under that quiet exterior of the husband. But it will be no easy task for them to swim against the tide of evil. That manly fellow will need all his moral ' thews and sinews' to stem the current before him." " It's a sin and a shame, it is, to go a bothering the brain of a little titmouse like that with learning !" exclaimed Mrs.' Bate- man, the head nurse, and despotic ruler in the suite of apartments devoted to the heiress of Lestrange. She was a large, portly woman, with a voice "less used to sue than to command," and looked like one who had enjoyedthe good things of this world,—a little perhaps to excess. On a sofa reclined a little child, propped up with velvet cushions. Her frock was of delicate muslin, trimmed with the costliest lace ; her slender neck was encircled with a coral necklace, the only colored thing about her, for the cheek of the little heiress was almost as white as her dress. Edith Lestrangc seemed much younger than she really was, if only the small slight figure was regarded, to which the iron in which she was encased gave a stiff unnatural appearance. Very tiny were the almost transparent fingers, small and delicately formed the head; but the features had a sharpened outline, with nothing of infantine roundness, and the large dark wistful eyes, scarcely wore the expression of childhood. 0ld, prematurely old, looked Edith, as if worn by care or pain ; a ruddy-cheeked bare-footed cottage girl might have pitied the little heiress, though the large doll beside her was dressed like a queen, and her favorite canary warbled his l...« less