nother time,
through Christ had we won the right notion of God. `Why,' said I, `how
know you that? Are you God, that you are able to judge what God should
be? Through Christ, in very deed, have we won to know God; but that is
by reason of the knowledge and authority of Him that revealed Him, not
by the clear discernment and just judgment of us that received that
revelation.' I do tell thee, Lettice--what with this man o' the one
side with his philosophical follies, and Parson Turnham on the other,
with his heathenish fooleries, I am at times well-nigh like old Elias,
ready to say, `Now then, O Lord, take me out of this wicked world, for I
cannot stand it any longer.'"

"He will take thee, dear Joyce, so soon as thou shalt come to the
further end of the last of those good works which He hath prepared for
thee to walk in."

"Well!--then must Edith do my good works for me. When our Father calls
this child in out of the sun and wind, and bids her lie down and fall
asleep, must that child see to it that my garden-plots be kept trim, and
no evil insects suffered to prey upon the leaves. Ay, my dear heart:
thou wilt be the lady of the Hill House, when old Aunt Joyce is laid
beneath the mould. May God bless thee in it, and it to thee! but
whensoever the change come, I shall be the gainer by it, not thou."

"Not I, indeed!" said Edith in a husky voice.

"`As a watch in the night!'" said Joyce Morrell solemnly. "`As a vapour
that vanisheth away!' What time have we for idle fooleries? Only time
to learn the letters that we shall spell hereafter--to form the strokes
and loops wherewith we shall write by and bye. Here we know but the
alphabet of either faith or love."

"And how often are we turned back in the very alphabet of patience!"

"Ay, we think much to tarry five minutes for God, though He may have
waited fifty years for us. I reckon it takes God to bear with this poor
thing, man, that even at his best times is ever starting aside like a
broken bow,--going astray like a lost sheep. Thank God that He hath
laid on the only Man that could bear them the iniquities of us all, and
that He hath borne them into a land not inhabited, where the Lord
Himself can find them no more."

"And let us thank God likewise," said Lady Lettice, "that our blessed
duty is to abide in Him, and that when He shall appear, we may have
confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

APPENDIX.