for their
Lord,'"--said Eleanor, her face taking a yearning look of
thoughtfulness.

"There aren't anywhere, _I_ don't believe. Eleanor--aren't you happy?"

"Yes!"

"You don't always look--just--so."

"Perhaps not. But to live for Jesus makes happy days--be sure of that,
Julia; however the face looks."

"Are you bothered about Mr. Carlisle?"

"What words you use!" said Eleanor smiling. "'Bother,' and 'scratchy.'
No, I am not bothered about him--I am a little troubled sometimes."

"What's the difference?"

"The difference between seeing one's way clear, and not seeing it; and
the difference between having a hand to take care of one, and not
having it."

"Well why do you talk to him so much, if he troubles you?" said Julia,
reassured by her sister's smile.

"I must," said Eleanor. "I must see through this business of the
bill--at all hazards. I cannot let that go. Mr. Carlisle knows I do not
compromise myself."

"Well, I'll tell you what," said Julia getting up to go,--"mamma means
you shall go to Rythdale; and she thinks you are going."

With a very earnest kiss to Eleanor, repeated with an emphasis which
set the seal upon all the advices and promises of the morning, Julia
went off. Eleanor sat a little while thinking; not long; and met Mr.
Carlisle the next time he came, with precisely the same sweet
self-possession, the unchanged calm cool distance, which drove that
gentleman to the last verge of passion and patience. But he was master
of himself and bided his time, and talked over the bill as usual.

It was not Eleanor alone who had occasion for the exercise of
admiration in these business consultations. Somewhat to his surprise,
Mr. Carlisle found that his quondam fair mistress was good for much
more than a plaything. With the quick wit of a woman she joined a
patience of investigation, an independent strength of judgment, a
clearness of rational vision, that fairly met him and obliged him to be
the best man he could in the business. He could not get her into a
sophistical maze; she found her way through immediately; he could not
puzzle her, for what she did not understand one day she had studied out
by the next. It is possible that Mr. Carlisle would not have fallen in
love with this clear intelligence, if he had known it in the front of
Eleanor's qualities; for he was one of those men who do not care for an
equal in a wife; but his case was by this time beyond cure. Nay, what
might have alienated