me!"

"I used to think so; but it is near to me now. So it does not so much
matter whereabouts on the earth I am."

"It must be nice to feel so!" said Mrs. Esthwaite with an unconscious
sigh.

"Do you not feel so?" Eleanor asked.

"O no. I do not know anything about it. I am not good--like you."

"It is not goodness--not my goodness--that makes heaven my home," said
Eleanor smiling at her and taking her hands.

"But I am sure you are good?" said Mrs. Esthwaite earnestly.

"Just as you are,--except for the grace of God, which is free to all."

"But," said Mrs. Esthwaite looking at her as if she were something
hardly of earth like ordinary mortals,--"I have not given up the world
as you have. I cannot. I like it too well."

"I have not given it up either," said Eleanor smiling again; "not in
the sense you mean. I have not given up anything but sin. I enjoy
everything else in the world as much as you do."

"What do you mean?" said Mrs. Esthwaite, much bewildered.

"Only this," said Eleanor, with very sweet gravity now. "I do not love
anything that my King hates. All that I have given up, and all that
leads to it; but I am all the more free to enjoy everything that is
really worth enjoying, quite as well as you can, or any body else."

"But--you do not go to parties and dances, and you do not drink wine,
and the theatre, and all that sort of thing; do you?"

"I do not love anything that my King hates," said Eleanor shaking her
head gently.

"But dancing, and wine,--what harm is in them?"

"Think what they lead to!--"

"Well wine--excuse me, I know so little about these things! and I want
to know what you think;--wine, I know, if people will drink too
much,--but what harm is in dancing?"

"None that I know of," said Eleanor,--"if it were always suited to
womanly delicacy, and if it took one into the society of those that
love Christ--or helped one to witness for him before those who do not."

"Well, I will tell you the truth," said Mrs. Esthwaite with a sort of
penitent laugh,--"I love dancing."

"Ay, but I love Christ," said Eleanor; "and whatever is not for his
honour I am glad to give up. It is no cross to me. I used to like some
things too; but now I love Him; and his will is my will."

"Ah, that is what I said! you are good, that is the reason. I can't
help doing wrong things, even if I want to do it ever so much, and when
I know they are wrong; and I shouldn't like to give up anything."

"Lis