"Ma'am?"
"You are drawing a very long breath, my dear. Where did it come from?"
The reserve which Eleanor had all her life practised before other people, had almost from the first given way before her aunt.
"From a thought of home, aunt Caxton. I shall not be so happy when I get back there."
"The happiness that will not bear transportation, Eleanor, is a very poor article. But they will not want you at home."
"I am afraid of it."
"Without reason. You will not go home this spring, my dear; trust me.You are mine for a good long time yet."
Mrs. Caxton was wiser than Eleanor; as was soon proved. Mrs. Powle wrote, desiring her daughter, whatever she did, not to come home then; nor soon. People would think she was come home for her wedding; and questions innumerable would be asked, the mortification of which would be unbearable. Whereas, if Eleanor kept away, the dismal certainty would by degrees become public, that there was to be no match at all between Rythdale and the Lodge. "Stay away till it all blown over, Eleanor," wrote her mother; "it is the least you can do for your family." And the squire even sent a word of a letter, more kind, but to the same effect. He wanted his bright daughter at home, he said; he missed her; but in the circumstances, perhaps it would be best, if her aunt would be so good as to keep her.
Eleanor carried these letters to Mrs. Caxton, with a tear in her eye, and an humbled, pained face.
"I told you so," said her aunt. "How could people expect that Mr. Carlisle's marriage would take place three months after the death of his mother? that is what I do not understand."
"They arranged it so, and it was given out, I suppose. Everything gets known. He was going abroad in the spring, or immediately after; and meant not to go without me."
"Now you are my child, my dear, and shall help me with my roses," said her aunt kissing her, and taking Eleanor in her arms. "Eleanor, is that second question settled yet?"
"No, aunt Caxton."
"You have not chosen yet which master you will serve,—the world or theLord?"
"O yes, ma'am—I have decided that. I know which I want to be."
"But not which you will be."
"I mean that, ma'am."
"You are not a servant of the Lord now, Eleanor?"
"No, aunt Caxton—I don't see how. I am dark."
"Christ says, 'He that is not with me is against me.' A question that is undecided, decides itself. Eleanor, decide this question to-night."
"To-night, ma'am?"
"Yes. I am going to send you to church."
"To church! There is no service to-night, aunt Caxton."
"Not at the church where you have been—in the village. There is a little church in the valley beyond Mrs. Pynce's cottage. You are going there."
"I do not remember any. Why, aunt Caxton, the valley is too narrow there for anything but the road and the brook; the mountains leave no room—hardly room for her house."
"You have never been any further. Do you not remember a sharp turn just beyond that place?"
"Yes, I do."
"You will see the chapel when you get round the turn."
The place Mrs. Caxton alluded to, was a wild, secluded, most beautiful valley, the bottom of which as Eleanor said was almost filled up with the road, and the brook which rushed along its course to meet the river; itself almost as large as another river. Where the people could be found to go to a church in such a region, she could not imagine. Heather clothed the hills; fairy cascades leaped down the rocks at every turning, lovely as a dream; the whole scene was wild and lonely. Hardly any human habitations or signs of human action broke the wild reign of nature all the valley through. Eleanor was sure of a charming ride at least, whether there was to be a congregation in the church at the end of it or no; and she prepared herself accordingly. Mrs. Caxton was detained at home; the car did not go; three or four of the household, men and women, went on ponies as Eleanor did.
They set off very early, while the light was fair and beautiful yet, for the ride was of some length. It was not on the way to the village; it turned off from the fine high road to a less practised and more uneven track. It was good for horses; and riding in front, a little ahead of her companions, Eleanor had the luxury of being alone. Why had Mrs. Caxton bade her "settle that question" to-night? How could she; when her mind was in so much darkness and confusion on the subject? Yet Eleanor hardly knew specifically what the hindrance was; only it was certain that while she wished and intended to be a Christian, she was no nearer the point, so far as she could see, than she had been months ago. Nay, Eleanor confessed to herself that in the sweet quiet and peace of her aunt's house, and in her own release from pressing trouble, she had rather let all troublesome thoughts slip away from her; so that, though not forgotten, the subject had been less painfully on her mind than through the weeks that went before her coming to Plassy. She had wished for leisure and quiet to attend to it and put that pain to rest for ever; and in leisure and quiet she had suffered pain to go to sleep in a natural way and left all the business of dealing with it to be deferred till the time of its waking. How was all this? Eleanor walked her pony slowly along, and thought.Thenshe had been freshly under the influence of Mr. Rhys and his preaching; the very remembrance of which, now and here, stirred her like an alarum bell. Ay, and more than that; it wakened the keen longing for that beauty and strength of life which had so shewn her her own poverty. Humbled and sad, Eleanor walked her pony on and on, while each little crystal torrent that came with its sweet clear rush and sparkle down the rocks, tinkled its own little silver bell note in her ears; a note of purity and action. Eleanor had never heard it from them before; now somehow each rushing streamlet, with its bright leap over obstacles and its joyous dash onward in its course, sounded the same note. Nothing could be more lovely than these cascades; every one different from the others, as if to shew how many forms of beauty water could take. Eleanor noticed and heard them every one and the call of every one, and rode on in a pensive mood till Mrs. Pynce's cottage was passed and the turn in the valley just beyond opened up a new scene for her.
How lovely! how various! The straitened dell spread out gradually from this point into a comparatively broad valley, bordered with higher hills as it widened in the distance. The light still shewed its entrancing beauty; wooded, and spotted with houses and habitations of all kinds; from the very humble to the very lordly, and from the business factories of to-day, back to the ruined strongholds of the time when war was business. Wide and delicious the view was, as much as it was unexpected; and spring's softened colouring was all over it. Eleanor made a pause of a few seconds as soon as all this burst upon her; her next thought was to look for the church. And it was plain to see; a small dark edifice, in excellent keeping with its situation; because of its colour and its simple structure, which half merged it among the rocks and the hills.
"That is the church, John?" Eleanor said to Mrs. Caxton's factotum.
"That is it, ma'am. There's been no minister there for a good piece of the year back."
"And what place is this?"
"There's noplace, to call it, ma'am. It's the valley of Glanog."
Eleanor jumped off her pony and went into the church. She had walked her pony too much; it was late; the service had begun; and Eleanor was taken with a sudden tremor at hearing the voice that was reading the hymn. She had no need to look to see whose it was. She walked up the aisle, seeking a vacant place to sit down, and exceedingly desirous to find it, for she was conscious that she was right under the preacher's eye and observation; but as one never does well what one does in confusion, she overlooked one or two chances that offered, and did not get a seat till she was far forward, in the place of fullest view for both seeing and being seen. And there she sat down, asking herself what should make her tremble so. Why had her aunt Caxton sent her that evening, alone, to hear Mr. Rhys preach? And why not? what was there about it? She was very glad, she knew, to hear him; but there would be no more apathy or languor in her mind now on the subject of that question her aunt had desired her to settle. No more. The very sound of that speaker's voice woke her conscience to a sharp sense of what she had been about all these months since she had heard it last. She bent her head in her hand for a little while, in a rushing of thoughts—or ideas—that prevented her senses from acting; then the words the people were singing around her made their entrance into her ear; an entrance opened by the sweet melody. The words were given very plain.
"No room for mirth or trifling here,For worldly hope, or worldly fear,If life so soon is gone;If now the Judge is at the door,And all mankind must stand beforeTh' inexorable throne!
"No matter which my thoughts employ,A moment's misery or joy;But O! when both shall end,Where shall I find my destined place?Shall I my everlasting daysWith fiends or angels spend?"
Eleanor sat cowering before that thought. "Now are we going to have a terrible sermon?" was her inward question. She would not look up. The preliminary services were all over, she found, and the preacher rose and gave out his text.
"A glorious high throne from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary."
Eleanor could not keep her eyes lowered another second. The well-known deliberate utterance, and a little unconscious indefinable ring of the tones in which the words were spoken, brought her eyes to the speaker's face; and they were never turned away again. "Do we need a sanctuary?"—was the first question the preacher started; and very quietly he went on to discuss that. Very quietly; his manner and his voice were neither in the slightest degree excited; how it was, Eleanor did not know, that as he went on a tide of feeling swept over the assembly. She could see it in the evidences of tears, and she heard it in a deep sough of the breath that went all over the house. The preacher was reaching each one's secret consciousness, and stirring into life that deep hidden want of every heart which every heart knew differently. Some from sorrow; some from sin; some from weariness; some from loneliness; some from the battle of life; some from the struggle with their own hearts; all, from the wrath to come. Nay, Eleanor's own heart was throbbing with the sense that he had reached it and touched it, and knew its condition. How was it, that with those quiet words he had bowed every spirit before him, her own among the number? It is true, that in the very containedness of his tones and words there was an evidence of suppressed power; it flashed out once in a while; and wrought possibly with the more effect from the feeling that it was contained and kept down. However it were, the minds of the assembly were already at a high state of tension, when he passed to the other part of his subject—the consideration of the sanctuary. It was no discourse of regular heads and divisions; it is impossible to report, except as to its effects. The preacher's head and heart were both full, and words had no stint. But in this latter part of his subject, the power which had been so contained was let loose, though still kept within bounds. The eye fired now, and the voice quivered with its charge, as he endeavoured to set before the minds of the people the glorious vision which filled his own; to make known to others the "riches of glory" in which his own soul rested and rejoiced. So evidently, that his hearers half caught at what he would shew them, by the catching of sympathy; and from different parts of the house now there went up a suppressed cry, of want, or of exultation, as the case might be, which it was very thrilling to hear. It was the sense of want and pain in Eleanor's mind; not spoken indeed except by her countenance; but that toned strongly with the notes of feeling that were uttered around her. As from the bottom of a dark abyss into which he had fallen, a person might look up to the bright sky, of which he could see but a little, which yet would give him token of all the firmamental light and beauty up there which he had not. From her darkness Eleanor saw it; saw it in the preacher's face and words; yes, and heard it in many a deep-breathed utterance of gladness or thanksgiving at her side. She had never felt so dark in her life as when she left the church. She rushed away as soon as the service was over, lest any one should speak to her; however she had to wait some time outside the door before John came out. The people all tarried strangely.
"Beg pardon, ma'am," said John, "but we was waiting a bit to see the minister."
Eleanor rode home fast, through fair moonlight without and great obscurity within her own spirit. She avoided her aunt; she did not want to speak of the meeting; she succeeded in having no talk about it that I night.
"I glanced within a rock's cleft breast,A lonely, safely-sheltered nest.There as successive seasons go,And tides alternate ebb and flow,Full many a wing is trained for flightIn heaven's blue field—in heaven's broad light."
The next morning at breakfast Eleanor and her aunt were alone as usual.There was no avoiding anything.
"Did you have a pleasant evening?" Mrs. Caxton asked.
"I had a very pleasant ride, aunt Caxton."
"How was the sermon?"
"It was—I suppose it was very good; but it was very peculiar."
"In what way?"
"I don't know, ma'am;—it excited the people very much. They could not keep still."
"Do you like preaching better that does not excite people?"
Eleanor hesitated. "No, ma'am; but I do not like them to make a noise."
"What sort of a noise?"
Eleanor paused again, and to her astonishment found her own lip quivering and her eyes watering as she answered,—"It was a noise of weeping and of shouting—not loud shouting; but that is what it was."
"I have often known such effects under faithful presenting of the truth," said Mrs. Caxton composedly. "When people's feelings are much moved, it is very natural to give them expression."
"For uncultivated people, particularly."
"I don't know about the cultivation," said Mrs. Caxton. "Robert Hall's sermons used to leave two thirds of his hearers on their feet. I have seen a man in middle life, a judge in the courts, one of the heads of the community in which he lived, so excited that he could not undo the fastenings of his pew door; and he put his foot on the seat and sprang over into the aisle."
"Do you like such things, aunt Caxton?"
"I prefer another mode of getting out of church, my dear."
"But shouting, or crying out, is what people of refinement would not do, even if they could not open their pew doors."
Eleanor was a little sorry the moment she had uttered this speech; her spirits were in a whirl of disorder and uncomfortableness, and she had spoken hastily. Mrs. Caxton answered with great composure.
"What do you call those words that you are accustomed to hear, the 'Gloria in Excelsis'?—'Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good will towards men. We praise thee, we bless thee, we worship thee, we glorify thee, we give thanks to thee for thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King.'"
"What do you call it, aunt Caxton?"
"If it is not a shout of joy, I can make nothing of it. Or the one hundred and fiftieth psalm—'O praise God in his holiness; praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him in his noble acts; praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him in the sound of the trumpet; praise him upon the lute and harp. Praise him in the cymbals and dances; praise him upon the strings and pipe. Praise him upon the well tuned cymbals; praise him upon the loud cymbals. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.'—What is that but a shout of praise?"
"It never sounded like a shout," said Eleanor.
"It did once, I think," said Mrs. Caxton.
"When was that, ma'am?"
"When Ezra sang it, with the priests and the people to help him, after they were returned from captivity. Then the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off. All the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord."
"But aunt Caxton," said Eleanor, who felt herself taken down a little, as a secure talker is apt to be by a manner very composed in his opponent—"it is surely the habit of refined persons in these times not to get excited—or not to express their feelings very publicly?"
"A very good habit," said Mrs. Caxton. "Nevertheless I have seen a man—a gentleman—and a man in very high standing, in a public assembly, go white with anger and become absolutely speechless, with the strength of passion, at some offence he had taken."
"O such passions, of course, will display themselves sometimes," saidEleanor. "Bad passions often will. They escape control."
"I have seen a lady—a lovely and refined lady—faint away at the sudden tidings that a child's life was secure,—whom she had almost given up for lost."
"But, dear aunt Caxton! you do not call that a parallel case?"
"A parallel case with what?"
"Anybody might be excited at such a thing. You would wonder if they were not."
"I do not see the justness of your reasoning, Eleanor. A man may turn white with passion, and it is natural; woman may faint with joy at receiving back her child from death; and you are not surprised. But the joy of suddenly seeing eternal life one's own—the joy of knowing that God has forgiven our sins—you think may be borne calmly. I have known people faint under that joy as well."
"Aunt Caxton," said Eleanor, her voice growing hoarse, "I do not see how anybody can have it. How can they know their sins are forgiven?"
"You may find it in your Bible, Eleanor; did you never see it there?'The Spirit witnesseth with our spirit, that we are the children ofGod.'"
"But Paul was inspired?"
"Yes, thank God!—to declare that dividend of present joy to all shareholders in the stock of eternal life. But doubtless, only faith can take it out."
Eleanor sat silent, chewing bitter thoughts. "O this is what these people have!"—she said to herself;—"this is the helmet of salvation! And I am as far from it as ever!" The conversation ended there. Eleanor was miserable all day. She did not explain herself; Mrs. Caxton only saw her preoccupied, moody, and silent.
"There is preaching again at Glanog to-night," she said a few days afterwards; "I am not yet quite well enough to go. Do you choose to go, Eleanor?"
Eleanor looked down and answered yes.
She went; and again, and again, and again. Sundays or week days, Eleanor missed no chance of riding her pony to the little valley church. Mrs. Caxton generally went with her, after the first week; but going in her car she was no hindrance to the thoughtfulness and solitude of the rides on horseback; and Eleanor sometimes wept all the way home, and oftener came with a confused pain in her heart, dull or acute as the case might be. She saw truth that seemed beautiful and glorious to her; she saw it in the faces and lives as well as in the words of others; she longed to share their immunity and the peace she perceived them possessed of; but how to lay hold of it she could not find. She seemed to herself too evil ever to become good; she tried, but her heart seemed as hard as a stone. She prayed, but no relief came. She did not see how shecouldbe saved, while evil had such a hold of her; and to dislodge it she was powerless. Eleanor was in a constant state of uneasiness and distress now. Her usually fine temper was more easily roughened than she had ever known it; the services she had long been accustomed to render to others who needed her, she felt it now very hard to give. She was dissatisfied with herself and very unhappy, and she said to herself that she was unfit to properly minister to anybody else. She became a comparatively silent and ungenial companion to her aunt. Mrs. Caxton perhaps understood her; for she made no remark on this change, seemed to take no notice; was as evenly and tenderly affectionate to her niece as ever before, with perhaps a little added expression of sympathy now and then. She did not even ask an explanation of Eleanor's manner of getting out of church.
Eleanor and her aunt, as it happened, always occupied a seat very near the front and almost under the pulpit. It had been Eleanor's custom ever since the first time she came there, to slip out of her seat and make her way down the aisle with eager though quiet haste; leaving her aunt to follow at her leisure; and she was generally mounted and off before Mrs. Caxton reached the front door. During the service always now, Eleanor's eyes were fastened upon the preacher; his often looked at her; he recognized her of course; and Eleanor had a vague fear that if she were not out of the way he would some time or other come down and accost her. It was an unreasoning fear; she gave no account of it to herself; except that her mind was in an unsettled, out-of-order state, that would not bear questioning; and if he came he would be certain to question her. So Eleanor fled and let her aunt do the talking—if any there were. Eleanor never asked and never knew.
This went on for some weeks. Spring had burst upon the hills, and the valleys were green in beauty and flushing with flowers; and Eleanor's heart was barren and cold more than she had ever felt it to be. She began to have a most miserable opinion of herself.
It happened one night, what rarely happened, that Mr. Rhys had some one in the pulpit with him. Eleanor was sorry; she grudged to have even the closing prayer or hymn given by another voice. But it was so this evening; and when Eleanor rose as usual to make her quick way out of the house, she found that somebody else had been quick. Mr Rhys stood beside her. It was impossible to help speaking. He had clearly come down for the very purpose. He shook hands with Eleanor.
"How do you do?" he said. "I am glad to see you here. Is your mind at rest yet?"
"No," said Eleanor. However it was, this meeting which she had so shunned, was not entirely unwelcome to her when it came. If anything would make her feel better, or any counsel do her good, se was willing to stand even questioning that might lead to it. Mr. Rhys's questioning on this occasion was not very severe. He only asked her, "Have you ever been to class?"
"To what?" said Eleanor.
"To a class-meeting. You know what that is?"
"Yes,—I know a little. No, I have never been to one."
"I should like to see you at mine. We meet at Mrs. Powlis's in the village of Plassy, Wednesday afternoon."
"But I could not, Mr. Rhys. It would not be possible for me to say a word before other people; it would not be possible."
"I will try not to trouble you with difficult questions. Promise me that you will come. It will not hurt you to hear others speak."
Eleanor hesitated.
"Will you come and try?"
"Yes."
"There!" said Eleanor to herself as she rode away,—"now I have got my head in a net, and I am fast. I going to such a place! What business have I there?—" And yet there was a sweet gratification in the hope that somehow this new plan might bring her good. But on the whole Eleanor disliked it excessively, with all the power of mature and cultivation. For though frank enough to those whom she loved, a proud reserve was Eleanor's nature in regard to all others whom she did not love; and the habits of her life were as far as possible at variance with this proposed meeting, in its familiar and social religious character. She could not conceive how people should wish to speak of their intimate feelings before other people. Her own shrank from exposure as morbid flesh shrinks from the touch. However, Wednesday came.
"Can I have Powis this afternoon, aunt Caxton?"
"Certainly, my dear; no need to ask. Powis is yours. Are you going toMrs. Pynce?"
"No ma'am.—" Eleanor struggled.—"Mr. Rhys has made me promise to go to his class. I do not like to go at all; but I have promised."
"You will like to go next time," said Mrs. Caxton quietly. And she said no more than that.
"Will I?" thought Eleanor as she rode away. But if there was anything harsh or troubled in her mood of mind, all nature breathed upon it to soften it. The trees were leafing out again; the meadows brilliant with fresh green; the soft spring airs wooing into full blush and beauty the numberless spring flowers; every breath fragrant with new sweetness. Nothing could be lovelier than Eleanor's ride to the village; nothing more soothing to a ruffled condition of thought; and she arrived at Mrs. Powlis's door with an odd kind of latent hopefulness that something good might be in store for her there.
Her strange and repugnant feelings returned when she got into the house. She was shewn into a room where several other persons were sitting, and where more kept momently coming in. Greetings passed between these persons, very frank and cordial; they were all at home there and accustomed to each other and to the business; Eleanor alone was strange, unwonted, not in her element. That feeling however changed as soon as Mr. Rhys came in. Where he was, there was at least one person whom she had sympathy, and who had some little degree of sympathy with her. Eleanor's feelings were destined to go through a course of discipline before the meeting was over.
It began with some very sweet singing. There were no books; everybody knew the words that were sung, and they burst out like a glad little chorus. Eleanor's lips only were mute. The prayer that followed stirred her very much. It was so simple, so pure, so heavenward in its aspirations, so human in its humbleness, so touching in its sympathies. For they reachedher, Eleanor knew by one word. And when the prayer was ended, whatever might follow, Eleanor was glad she had come to that class-meeting.
But what followed she found to be intensely interesting. In words, some few some many, one after another of the persons present gave an account of his progress or of his standing in the Christian life. Each spoke only when called upon by Mr. Rhys; and each was answered in his turn with a word of counsel or direction or encouragement, as the case seemed to need. Sometimes the answer was in the words of the Bible; but always, whatever it were, it was given, Eleanor felt, with singular appositeness to the interests before him. With great skill too, and with infinite sympathy and tenderness if need called for it; with sympathy invariably. And Eleanor admired the apt readiness and kindness and wisdom with which the answers were framed; so as to suggest without fail the lesson desired to be given, yet so suggest it should be felt by nobody as a imputation or a rebuke. And ever and again the little assembly broke out into a burst of song, a verse or two of some hymn, that started naturally from the last words that had been said. Those bursts of song touched Eleanor. They were so plainly heartfelt, so utterly glad in their utterances, that she had never head the like. No choir, the best trained in the world, could give such an effect with their voices, unless they were also trained and meet to be singers in heaven. One of the choruses pleased Eleanor particularly. It was sung in a wild sweet tune, and with great energy.
"There's balm in Gilead,To make the wounded whole.There's power enough in Jesus—To save a sin-sick soul."
It was just after this was finished, that Mr Rhys in his moving about the room, came and stood before Eleanor. He asked her "Do You love Jesus?"
It is impossible to express the shame and sorrow which Eleanor answered, "No."
"Do you wish to be a Christian?"
Eleanor bowed her head.
"Do you intend to be one?"
Eleanor looked up, surprised at the wore, and answered, "If I can."
"Do you think," said he very tenderly, "that you have a right to that 'if'—when Jesus has said, 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, andI will give you rest?'"
He turned from her, and again struck the notes they had been singing.
"There's balm in GileadTo make the wounded whole.There's power enough in JesusTo save a sin-sick soul."
The closing prayer followed, which almost broke Eleanor's heart in two; it so dealt with her and for her. While some of those present were afterward exchanging low words and shakes of the hand, she slipped away and mounted her pony.
She was in dreadful confusion during the first part of her ride. Half resentful, half broken-hearted. It was the last time, she said to herself, that ever she would be found in a meeting like that. She would never go again; to make herself a mark for people's sympathy and a subject for people's prayers. And yet—surely the human mind seems an inconsistent thing at times,—the thought of that sympathy and those prayers had a touch of sweetness in it, which presently drew a flood of tears from Eleanor's eyes. There was one old man in particular, of venerable appearance, who had given a most dignified testimony of faith and happiness, whose "Amen!" recurred to her. It was uttered at the close of a petition Mr. Rhys had made in her favour; and Eleanor recalled it now with a strange mixture of feelings. Why was she so different from him and from the rest of those good people? She knew her duty; why was it not done? She seemed to herself more hard-hearted and evil than Eleanor would formerly have supposed possible of her; she had never liked herself less than she did during this ride home. Her mind was in a rare turmoil, of humiliation and darkness and sorrow; one thing only was clear; that she never would go to a class-meeting again! And yet it would be wrong to say that she was on the whole sorry she had gone once, or that she really regretted anything that had been done or said. But this once should suffice her. So she went along, dropping tears from her eyes and letting Powis find his way as he pleased; which he was quite competent to do.
By degrees her eyes cleared to see how lovely the evening was falling. The air sweet with exhalations from the hedge-rows and meadows, yes and from the more distant hills too; fragrant and balmy. The cattle were going home from the fields; smoke curled up from a hundred chimney tops along the hillsides and the valley bottom; the evening light spread here and there in a broad glow of colour; fair snatches of light were all that in many a place the hills and the bottom could catch. Every turn in the winding valley brought a new combination of wonderful beauty into view; and shadows and light, and flower-fragrance, and lowing cattle along the ways, and wreaths of chimney smoke; all spoke of peace. Could the spell help reaching anybody's heart? It reached Eleanor's; or her mood in some inexplicable way soothed itself down; for when she reached the farmhouse, though she thought of herself in the same humbled forlorn way as ever, her thought of the class-meeting had changed.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Old Helmet, Volume I, by Susan Warner