"I do not know, ma'am."

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'My dear, it is the work of love that was not willing to let us be miserable. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He gave Himself a ransom for all. He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."

"Yes, I believe I understand that," said Eleanor wearily. "The only question is, whether we will let Him bring us. The question is, whether we are willing to accept this substitution of the innocent One for our guilty selves, and be His obedient children. If we are, if we rely on Him and His blood only, and are willing to give up ourselves to Him, then the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. No matter though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." "But I do not walk so," said Eleanor.

"Do you want to walk so?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am, yes!" said Eleanor clasping her hands. "I desire it above all possible things. I want to be such an one.

"If you truly desire it, my dear, it is certain that you may have what you want; for the Lord's will is not different. He died for this very thing, that He might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. There is an open door before you; all things are ready; you have only to plead the promises and enter in. The Lord Himself says, Come."

"Aunt Caxton, I understand, I think; but I do not feel; not anything but fear and desire.

"This is the mere statement of truth, my dear. It is like the altar with the wood laid in readiness, and the sacrifice-all cold; and till fire falls down from heaven, no incense will arise from earth. But if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."

"I am a poor creature, aunt Caxton," said Eleanor, hiding her face again. And again Mrs. Caxton's arm came tenderly round her. And again Eleanor's tears flowed, this time in a flood.

"Certainly you are a poor creature, Eleanor. I am glad you are finding it out. But will you flee to the stronghold, you poor little prisoner of hope?"

"I think I am rather the prisoner of fear, aunty."

"Hope is a better gaoler, my dear.”

"But that is the very thing that I want."

"The Lord give it you."

They sat a good while in stillness after that, each thinking her own thoughts; or perhaps those of the elder lady took the form of prayers. At last Eleanor raised her head and kissed her aunt's lips earnestly. "How good of you to let me come to Plassy," she said.

"I shall keep you here now. You will not wish to be at home again for some time."

"No, ma'am. No indeed I shall not."

"What are you going to do about Mr. Carlisle?"

"I shall write to-morrow. Or to-night."

"And tell hin. —”

"The plain truth, aunt Caxton. I mean, the truth of the fact, of It is very hard," said Eleanor sorrowfully.

course.

"It is doubtless hard; but it is the least of all the choice of evils you have left yourself. Write to-night, and here, if you will. If you can without being disturbed by me.

"The sight of you will only help me, aunt Caxton. But I did not know the harm I was doing when I entered into all this."

"I believe it. Go and write your letter."

Eleanor brought her paper-case and sat down at the table. Mrs. Caxton ordered other lights and was mutely busy at her own table. Not a word was spoken for a good while. It was with a strange mixture of pain and bursting gladness that Eleanor wrote the letter which she hoped would set her free. But the gladness was enough to make her sure it ought to be written; and the pain enough to make it a bitter piece of work. The letter was finished, folded, sealed; and with a sigh Eleanor closed her paper-case.

"What sort of a clergyman have you at home?" Mrs. Caxton asked. She had not spoken till then.

"He is a kind old man-he is a good man," Eleanor said, picking for words; "I like him. He is not a very interesting preacher." "Did you ever hold any talk with him on your thoughts of hope and fear?"

"I could not, ma'am. I have tried; but I could not bring him to the point. He referred me to confirmation and to doing my duty; he did not help me.'

"It is not a happy circumstance, that his public teaching should raise questions which his private teaching cannot answer."

"Oh it did not," said Eleanor. "Dr. Cairnes never raised a question in anybody's mind, I am sure; never in mine."

"The light that sprung up in your mind then, came you not know whence?"

"It

"Yes, ma'am, I do," said Eleanor, with a little difficulty. came from the words and teaching of a living example. But in me it seems to be only darkness.

Mrs. Caxton said no more, and Eleanor added no more. The servants came in to family prayer; and then they took their candles and bade each other an affectionate good night, And Eleanor slept that night without dreaming.

CHAPTER XVII.

AT GLANOG.

For something that abode endued
With temple-like repose, an air
Of life's kind purposes pursued

With order'd freedom sweet and fair.
A tent pitched in a world not right

It seemed, whose inmates, every one.
On tranquil faces, bore the light

Of duties beautifully done.

HOW did the days pass after that, and remorse, anxiety with

Eleanor; in miserable uncertainty, and remorse, and sorrow.

She counted the hours till her despatch could be in Mr. Carlisle's hands; then she figured to herself the pain it would cause him; then she doubted fearfully what the immediate effect would be. It might be to bring him down to Plassy with the utmost speed of posthorses, and again Eleanor reckoned the stages and estimated the speed at which Mr. Carlisle's postilions could be made to travel, and the time when it would be possible for this storm to burst upon Piassy. That day Eleanor begged the pony and went out. She wandered for hours among unnumbered, and almost unheeded beauties of mountain and vale; came home at a late hour, and crept in by a back entrance. No stranger had come, the storm had not burst yet; and Mrs. Caxton was moved to pity all the suppertime and hours of the evening at the state of fear and constraint in which Eleanor evidently dwelt.

My dear, did you like this man?" she said, when they were bidding each other good-night.

"Mr. Carlisle? Yes, very well, if only he had not wanted me to marry him."

"But you fear him, Eleanor."

Because, aunt Caxton, he always had a way of making me do just what he wished."

"Are you so easily governed, Eleanor, by one whom you do not love? I should not have thought it."

"I do not know how it was, aunty. I had begun wrong in the first place; I was in a false position, and lately Mr. Carlisle has taken it into his head, very unnecessarily, to be jealous; and I could not move a step without subjecting myself to a false imputation." Good-night, my dear," said her aunt. "If he comes, I will take all imputations on myself."

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But Mr. Carlisle did not come. Day passed after day, and the intense fear Eleanor had at first felt changed to a somewhat quieter anticipation, though she never came home from a ride without a good deal of circumspection about getting into the house. At last, one

day when she was sitting with her aunt the messenger came from the post, and one of those letters was handed to Eleanor that she knew so well, with the proud seal and its crest. Particularly full and well made she thought this seal was, though that was not so very uncommon, and perhaps she was fanciful; but it was a magnificent seal, and the lines of the outer handwriting were very bold and firm. Eleanor's cheeks lost some colour as she opened the envelope, which she did without breaking the bright black wax. Her own letter was all the enclosure.

The root of wrong, even unconsciously planted, will bear its own proper and bitter fruits; and Eleanor tasted them that day, and the next and the next. She was free, she was secure from even an attempt to draw her back into the bonds she had broken; when Mr. Carlisle's pride had taken up the question there was no danger of his ever relenting or faltering; and pride had thrown back her letter of withdrawal in her face. She was free, but she knew she had given pain, and that more feeling was stung in Mr. Carlisle's heart than his pride.

"He will get over it, my dear," said her aunt coolly. But Eleanor shed many tears for a day or two, over the wrong she had done. Letters from Ivy Lodge did not help her.

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"Home is very disagreeable now," wrote her little sister Julia. 'Mamma is crying half the day, and the other half she does not feel comfortable" (a gentle statement of the case.) "And papa

is very much vexed, and keeps out of doors the whole time, and Alfred with him; and Mr. Rhys is gone away, and I have got nobody. I shouldn't know what to do, if Mr. Rhys had not taught me; but now I can pray. Dear Eleanor, do you pray? I wish you were coming home again, but mamma says you are not coming in a great while; and Mr. Rhys is never coming back. He said

SO.

دو

Mrs. Powle's letter was in strict accordance with Julia's description of matters; desperately angry and mortified. The only comfort was, that in her mortification she desired Eleanor to keep away from home and out of her sight; so Eleanor, with a certain rest of heart in spite of all, prepared herself for a long, quiet sojourn with her aunt at the cheese-farm of Plassy. Mrs. Caxton composedly assured her that all this vexation would blow over; and Eleanor's own mind was soon fain to lay off its care and content itself in a nest of peace. Mrs. Caxton's house was that, to anybody worthy of enjoying it; and to Eleanor it had all the joy not only of fitness, but of novelty. But for a lingering care on the subject of the other question that had occupied her, Eleanor would in a little while have been happier than at any former time in her life. How was it with that question which had pressed so painfully hard during weeks and months past, now that leisure and opportunity were full and broad to take it up and attend to it? So they were; but with the removal of difficulty came in some degree the relaxing of effort; opportunity bred ease. It was so simple a thing to be good at Plassy, that Eleanor's cry for it became less bitter. Mrs. Caxton's presence, words, and prayers.

kept the thought constantly alive; yet with more of soothing and hopeful, than of exciting influence; and while Eleanor constantly wished she were happy like her, she nevertheless did not fail to be happy in her own way.

The aunt and niece were excellently suited to each other, and took abundant delight in each other's company. Eleanor found that what had been defective in her own education was in the way to be supplied and made up to her singularly; here, of all places, on a cheese-farm. So it was. To her accomplishments and materials of knowledge, she now found suddenly superadded the necessity and the practice of thinking. In Mrs. Caxton's house it was impossible to help it. Judgment, conscience, reason, and good. sense, were constantly brought into play; upon things already known and things until then not familiar. In the reading of books, of which they did a good deal; in the daily discussion of the newspaper; in the business of every hour, in the intercourse with every neighbour, Eleanor found herself always stimulated and obliged to look at things from a new point of view; to consider them with new lights; to try them by a new standard. As a living creature, made and put here to live for something, she felt herself now; as in a world where everybody had like trusts to fulfil and was living mindful or forgetful of his trust. How mindful Mrs. Caxton was of hers, Eleanor began every day with increasing admiration to see more and more. To her servants, to her neighbours, with her money, and her time, and her sympathies, for little present interests and for world-wide and everlasting ones, Mrs. Caxton was ever ready, active, watchful; hands full, and head full, and heart full. That motive power of her one mind and will, Eleanor gradually found, was the centre and spring of a vast machinery of good, working so quietly and so beneficently as proved it had been in operation a long, long time. It was a daily deep lesson to Eleanor, going deeper and deeper every day. The roots were striking down that would shoot up and bear fruit by-and-by.

Eleanor was a sweet companion to her aunt all those months. In her fresh, young, rich nature, Mrs. Caxton had presently seen the signs of strength, without which no character would have suited her; while Eleanor's temper was of the finest, and her mind went to work vigorously upon whatever was presented for its action. Mrs. Caxton wisely took care to give it an abundance of work; and furthermore employed Eleanor in busy offices of kindness and help to others; as an assistant in some of her own plans and habits of good. Many a ride Eleanor took on the Welsh pony, to see how some sick person was getting on, or to carry supplies to another, or to give instruction to another, or to oversee and direct the progress on which yet another was engaged. This was not new work to her; yet now it was done in the presence at least, if not under the pressure of a higher motive than she had been accustomed to bring to it. It took insome degree another character. Eleanor was never able to forget now that these people to whom she was ministering had more of the immortal in them than of even the earthly; she