n! --"

When she had got to this point, Elizabeth left her seat by the
window and crossed the room to a large wardrobe closet, on a
high shelf of which sundry unused articles of lumber had found
a hiding place. And having fetched a chair in, she mounted
upon the top of it and rummaged, till there came to her hand a
certain old bible which had belonged once to her mother or her
grandmother. Elizabeth hardly knew which, but had kept a vague
recollection of the book's being in existence and of its
having been thrust away up on that shelf. She brought it down
and dusted off the tokens of many a month's forgetfulness and
dishonour; and with an odd sense of the hands to which it had
once been familiar and precious, and of the distant influence
under the power of which it was now in her own hands, she laid
it on the bed, and half curiously, half fearfully, opened it.
The book had once been in hands that loved it, for it was
ready of itself to lie open at several places. Elizabeth
turned the leaves aimlessly, and finally left it spread at one
of these open places; and with both elbows resting on the bed
and both hands supporting her head, looked to see what she was
to find there. It chanced to be the beginning of the 119th
psalm.

"BLESSED ARE THE UNDEFILED IN THE WAY, WHO WALK IN THE LAW OF
THE LORD."

By what thread of association was it, that the water rushed to
her eyes when they read this, and for some minutes hindered
her seeing another word, except through a veil of tears?

"Am I becoming a Christian?" she said to herself. "But
something more must be wanting than merely to be sorry that I
am not what he is. How every upright look and word bear
witness that this description belongs to him. And I -- I am out
of 'the way' altogether."

"BLESSED ARE THEY THAT KEEP HIS TESTIMONIES, AND THAT SEEK HIM
WITH THE WHOLE HEART."

"'Keep his testimonies,'" said Elizabeth, -- "and 'seek him
with the whole heart.' -- I never did, or began to do, the one
or the other. '_With the whole heart_' -- and I never gave one
bit of my heart to it -- and how is he to be _sought?_ --"

"THEY ALSO DO NO INIQUITY; THEY WALK IN HIS WAYS."

The water stood in Elizabeth's eyes again.

"How far from me! -- how very far I am from it! 'Do no
iniquity,' -- and I suppose I am always doing it -- 'They walk
in his ways,' and I don't even so much as know what they are.
-- I wish Mr. Winthrop had said a little more yesterday!" --

S