be angels that stand there, but they
bear flaming swords."

He spoke lightly, yet there was an accent in his voice which revealed to
Agnes a deep unfilled void in his heart.

"Don't try piety," she said quietly. "Try Jesus Christ instead. There
are no flaming swords in the way to Him, and the truest and deepest
satisfaction cannot be reached without Him."

"Have you found it thus, Mrs Agnes?"

"I have, Mr Louvaine."

"But, then,--you see,--you have not tried other fashions of pleasure,
maybe," said Aubrey, slowly.

"Have you?" said Agnes.

"Ay--a good many."

"And did you find them satisfying? I say not, pleasant at the moment,
but satisfying?"

"Well, that is a large word," said Aubrey.

"It is a large word," was the reply, "yet Christ can fill it: and none
can do it but He. Know you any thing or creature else that can?"

"I cannot say, for I have not needed it."

"That is, you have not been down yet into deep places, methinks, where
the floods have overflowed you. I have not visited many, in truth; yet
have I been in one or two where I should have lost my footing, had not
my Lord held me up."

A very sorrowful look came into the gentle eyes. Agnes was thinking of
the faithless Jonas Derwent, who had cast her off in the day of her
calamity. Aubrey made no answer. He was beginning to find out that
life was not, as he had always imagined it, a field of flowers, but a
very sore and real battlefield, wherein to lose the victory meant to
lose his very self, and to win it meant to reign for ever and ever.

And then Mr Marshall's voice said on the other side of the door,--"This
is the way,"--and another voice, dearly welcome to Aubrey, responded as
Aunt Edith came into the room--

"Mine own dear boy! God be thanked that we see thee safe from harm!"

And again, for the twentieth time, Aubrey felt as he kissed her that he
had not deserved it.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

WHICH IS FULL OF SURPRISES.

"Ah, who am I, that God hath saved
Me from the doom I did desire,
And crossed the lot myself had craved,
To set me higher?"

Jean Ingelow.

As Mr Marshall approached the White Bear that evening, he was
unexpectedly pounced upon by Silence Abbott.

"Eh, Parson, I declare it's you! How fares Mrs Agnes this cold even?
Marry, I do believe we shall have snow ere the day break again. The
White Bear'll be a bit whiter, I reckon, if he be well snowed o'er. Are
you going in th