that is high and great. Why does He not give us pure full light? satisfy these cravings which He himself must have put within these created minds? Am I a worm-speaking daringly of the Creator? No, I am no worm; when God put mind within matter, it ceased to be a worm. Ay, but one might envy the little worm that wants no more than is given to it." 66 Nov. 25th.-To-day Dr. Brown came to see me, and we walked in the woods together. He told me one of his old-fashioned stories. A nobleman long ago kept a jester, and one day he gave him his staff, telling him to keep it till he met with a greater fool than himself. Some years afterwards the nobleman fell sick, and said to his fool, I am going away on a long journey.' And when do you return?' asked the fool. Never.' 'Have you a friend to meet you at your journey's end?' 'No.' 6 6 What provision have you made for the way?' None.' Here,' said the fool, take the staff, I was never such a fool as that.' Am I wiser than the nobleman; am I as wise as the fool? But how can one prepare for that fearful eternity? D'Arcy would say, 'Read your Bible.' Bible.' Whenever I go into his room now, he is reading it; but it never speaks to me, every word is so common, so familiar. I know that it is good for the common people, but I want something greater and grander. I think that Dr. Brown is the only one who knows that there is more thought in me than in the fashionable triflers of society. But even to him I cannot speak, I cannot ask; bolts and bars and heavy chains are drawn around my thoughts, and they cannot escape into expression. We spoke of Miss Morris, and I said how sad it must be for a sickly old maid to have nothing to live for. Dr. Brown smiled, and said that she had plenty to live for in this world, and plenty more in the next;' then he said something about the work and the progress of eternity. That gives me a new idea. I always thought that the heaven which good people expect is a place where they are to do nothing but rest and sing psalms for ever. I would not care 6 for such a heaven as that, though I cannot put into words what I want it to be; how grand to be for ever rising, for ever acting, for ever growing greater and greater! I wonder if Dr. Brown meant anything like that, I had not courage to ask him." After writing that journal, Lady Elinor went to the window, and drawing up the blind, looked out on a moonlight night. How often since our childhood have we all done that same most simple action, and yet how strangely new it ever is to us! It seems as if every time it were a fresh revelation of beauty, a newly filled treasure-house of thought. One night the blue radiant heavens bring a message of peace into our hearts; on another they blend strangely with the joy that is within us; on another they speak of softest and saddest memories; on another their very calmness is a torment to the feverish and turbulent soul; on another, their glories depress us into the very dust. But ever and always it is as if the voice, the mes sage, the influence of those nightly watchers, had never been heard and felt before. To Elinor Mordaunt this night it seemed as if each little ball of purest light, each flash of azure and of silver, spoke of a love calm and unchanging; but how to reach it, how to reach it ?—of a work noble and lofty and ever successful; but where, ah, where to find the strength? The moon and the stars gave no answer. F CHAPTER VI. A SICK-ROOM. "The Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks. . . . In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments."ISA. iii. 16, 18. "We ignorant of ourselves Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers Deny us for our good; so find we profit By losing of our prayers." "'Tis first the true and then the beautiful, Not first the beautiful and then the true; SHAKSPERE. First the wild moor, with rock, and reed, and pool, "'Tis first the good and then the beautiful, Not first the beautiful and then the good; "Not first the glad and then the sorrowful, But first the sorrowful and then the glad. H. BONAR. ONE day Dr. Brown returned from his morning round of professional visits, and sat down to rest in his easy-chair. He was not very well, and rather depressed; he scarcely |