oom still
belonging to Agnes, and saw her sitting by the fire, at a pretty
old-fashioned desk she had, writing.

My darkening the light made her look up. What a pleasure to be the cause
of that bright change in her attentive face, and the object of that
sweet regard and welcome!

'Ah, Agnes!' said I, when we were sitting together, side by side; 'I
have missed you so much, lately!'

'Indeed?' she replied. 'Again! And so soon?'

I shook my head.

'I don't know how it is, Agnes; I seem to want some faculty of mind that
I ought to have. You were so much in the habit of thinking for me, in
the happy old days here, and I came so naturally to you for counsel and
support, that I really think I have missed acquiring it.'

'And what is it?' said Agnes, cheerfully.

'I don't know what to call it,' I replied. 'I think I am earnest and
persevering?'

'I am sure of it,' said Agnes.

'And patient, Agnes?' I inquired, with a little hesitation.

'Yes,' returned Agnes, laughing. 'Pretty well.'

'And yet,' said I, 'I get so miserable and worried, and am so unsteady
and irresolute in my power of assuring myself, that I know I must
want--shall I call it--reliance, of some kind?'

'Call it so, if you will,' said Agnes.

'Well!' I returned. 'See here! You come to London, I rely on you, and I
have an object and a course at once. I am driven out of it, I come
here, and in a moment I feel an altered person. The circumstances that
distressed me are not changed, since I came into this room; but an
influence comes over me in that short interval that alters me, oh, how
much for the better! What is it? What is your secret, Agnes?'

Her head was bent down, looking at the fire.

'It's the old story,' said I. 'Don't laugh, when I say it was always
the same in little things as it is in greater ones. My old troubles were
nonsense, and now they are serious; but whenever I have gone away from
my adopted sister--'

Agnes looked up--with such a Heavenly face!--and gave me her hand, which
I kissed.

'Whenever I have not had you, Agnes, to advise and approve in the
beginning, I have seemed to go wild, and to get into all sorts of
difficulty. When I have come to you, at last (as I have always done),
I have come to peace and happiness. I come home, now, like a tired
traveller, and find such a blessed sense of rest!'

I felt so deeply what I said, it affected me so sincerely, that my voice
failed, and I covered my face with my hand, and bro