laimed Helen; 'but you will
always wrest my words, and pretend to misunderstand me.'

'I am sorry I have vexed you, Helen,' said Elizabeth, more kindly; and
Helen left the room.

'Indeed, Lizzie,' said Anne, 'I cannot think why you argued against
this poor girl, after what you said yesterday.'

'Because I cannot bear Helen's sententious decided manner,' said
Elizabeth; 'and she exaggerates so much, that I must sometimes take her
down.'

'But,' said Anne, 'do you not exaggerate the exaggeration, and so put
her more in the right than yourself?'

'You mean by turning her string of superlatives into a paragon of
perfection,' said Elizabeth; 'I certainly believe I was unjust, but I
could not help it.'

Anne did not see that her cousin might not have helped it, but she
thought she had said enough on the subject, and let it pass.

'Now, Anne,' said Elizabeth, presently after, 'what strange people we
are, to stand here abusing Helen and the Hazlebys, instead of talking
over such wonderful happiness as it is to think that your father and
mine have been allowed to complete such a work as this church.'

'Indeed it is wonderful happiness,' said Anne, her eyes filling with
tears, 'but I do not know whether you feel as I do, that it is too
great, too overwhelming, to talk of now it is fresh. We shall enjoy
looking back to it more when we are further from it.'

'Yes,' said Elizabeth; 'this morning I was only fit to laugh or cry, at
I did not know what, and now I am vexed with myself for having been too
much occupied and annoyed with little things to be happy enough. This
Consecration day will be a glorious time to look back to, when it is
alone on the horizon, and we have lost sight of all that blemishes it
now. I will tell you what it will be like. I once saw the Church, on
a misty day, from a great distance. It was about the middle of the
day, and the veil of mist was hanging all round the hill, but there
stood the Church, clear and bright, and alone in the sunshine, all the
scaffold poles and unfinished roughness lost sight of in the distance.
I never saw a more beautiful sight.'

'And do you expect that distance of time will conceal all blemishes as
well as distance of place?' said Anne.

'Yes, unless I take a telescope to look at them with,' answered
Elizabeth; 'perhaps, Anne, in thirty years time, if we both live so
long, we may meet and talk over this day, and smile, and wonder that we
could have been vexed b