.' Surely, howsoever sunk in the mire, and
howsoever blind thou be, thou canst ask to be lifted forth, and to have
sight given thee. Brethren, will ye not so do? When ye fall to your
prayers this even, ere ye sleep, will ye not say so much as this? Yea,
will ye not go further, and run up the ladder, and cry with a mighty
voice, `I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me'?"

When Jenny Lavender came out of church, she stood on the second step of
the ladder. She scarcely heard Abigail Walker's taunt of "Well, if Mrs
Jane did give her the gown, I'll go bail she stole that pink ribbon."
Such things were far beneath one who had set foot on that ladder. And
Jenny did not stay at the bottom; she ran up fast. By the time that she
knelt down at her bedside for her evening prayers, she had come to the
fourth step--"I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me."

The last atom of Jenny's old admiration for Robin Featherstone, which
had been already shaken, vanished that day. The Spirit of God, who had
touched her heart through the preacher, led her to see that folly,
vanity, and frivolity were utterly out of concord with Him. And then
came a feeling of regret for the unkind flippancy with which she had
treated Tom Fenton. Jenny knew that Tom was a Christian man; it had
been one reason why she despised him, so long as she was not herself a
Christian woman. There was a gulf between them now, and of her own
digging. Tom had given over coming to the farm except on business; he
gave her a kindly "Good morrow!" when they met, but it was no more than
he gave to Kate, or any other girl of his acquaintance; and Jenny saw
nothing of him beyond that. On every side she heard his praises, as a
doer of brave and kindly actions. She knew that, apart from the mere
outside, there was not a man to be compared to Tom Fenton in the whole
neighbourhood. It was bitter to reflect that the time had been when Tom
was ready to put himself and all he had at her feet, and she had only
her own folly to thank that it was over. No wonder Jenny grew graver,
and looked older than she used to be. Her father was uneasy about her;
he feared she was either ill or unhappy, and consulted his sensible old
mother.

"Nay," said Mrs Lavender, "Jenny's not took bad; and as for her
sadness, it's just womanhood coming to her. Don't you spoil it, Joe.
The furnace burns up the dross, and let it go! It won't hurt the good
gold."

"You don't think then,