ad to see me when I come,
and ready to talk; but he will not talk with his neighbours. He says he
wants to keep his thoughts fixed on God; and if he listened to these
people they would talk to him of village affairs, and turn his mind
off."

"Then, if you had a happy time, I suppose _he_ is happy?"

"He is happy. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! Think of old Caesar,
going to glory from the darkness of Fiji. He said to me to-night--'I am
weak, and I am old; my time is come, but I am not afraid to die;
through Jesus I feel courageous for death. Jesus is my Chief, and I
wish to obey him: if he says I am yet to lie here, I will praise him;
and if he says I am to go above to him, I will praise him. I do not
wish to eat; his word is my food; I think on it, and lean entirely on
Jesus.'--Do you know how good it is to be a missionary, Eleanor?"

They exchanged looks; that was all; they were at the door, and went in.
The party there were expecting and waiting for them, and it was more
than a common welcome, Eleanor saw, that was given to them. She did not
wonder at it. After exchanging warm greetings all round, she sat down;
but Mr. Rhys began walking the floor. The rest were silent. There was a
somewhat dim light from a lamp in the room; the windows and doors were
open; the air, sweet with flowers and fresh from the sea, came in
gently; the soft sounds of leaves and insects could be heard through
the fall of Mr. Rhys's steps upon the matted floor. The hour had a
strange charm to Eleanor.

Silence lasted, until Mr. Rhys interrupted it with kneeling down for
prayer. Then followed one of those prayers, in which it always seemed
to Eleanor as if somebody had taken her hand, who was leading her where
she could almost look in at the gates of that city which Bunyan called
the Celestial. Somewhere above earth it took her, and rapt her up as
Milton's angel is said to have descended, upon a sunbeam. One came to
earth again at the end of the prayer; but not without a remembrance of
where one had been.

"Sister Balliol," said Mr. Rhys, "will you put us in mind concerning
our subject this evening?"

"It is the glory to be revealed; and I find that it is a glory to be
revealed in us," Mrs. Balliol made answer. "Sufferings come first. It
is a glory that goes along with sufferings in the present life; but it
is so much greater than the sufferings, that no comparison c