, looking round to the moonlight
again.

"But Mr. Landholm," said Elizabeth in evident distress, "won't
you tell me something more?"

"I cannot."

"Oh yes you can, -- a great deal more," she said weeping.

"I could," he said gravely, -- "yet I should tell you nothing --
you would not understand me. You must, find it out for
yourself."

"How in the world can I?"

"There is a promise, -- 'If any man will do his will, he shall
know of the doctrine.'"

"I don't know how to begin, nor anything about it," said
Elizabeth, weeping still.

"Begin anywhere."

"How? What do you mean?"

"Open the Bible at the first chapter of Matthew, and read. Ask
honestly, of your own conscience and of God, at each step,
what obligation upon you grows out of what you are reading. If
you follow his leading he will lead you on, -- to himself."

Elizabeth sobbed in silence for some little time; then she
said,

"I will do it, Mr. Landholm."

"If you do," said he, "you will find you can do nothing."

"Nothing!" said Elizabeth.

"You will find you are dependent upon the good pleasure of God
for power to take the smallest step."

"His good pleasure! -- Suppose it should not be given me."

"There is no 'suppose' about that," Winthrop answered, with a
slight smile, which seen as it was through a veil of tears,
Elizabeth never forgot, and to which she often looked back in
after time; -- "'Whosoever _will_, let him take the water of
life freely.' But he does not always get a draught at the
first asking. The water of life was not bought so cheap as
that. However, 'to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.'"

Elizabeth hearkened to him, with a curious mixture of yielding
and rebellion at once in her mind. She felt them both there.
But the rebellion was against the words; her yielding was for
the voice that brought the words to her ear. She paused
awhile.

"At that rate, people might be discouraged before they got
what they wanted," she observed, when the silence had lasted
some little time.

"They might," said Winthrop quietly.

"I should think many might."

"Many have been," he answered.

"What then?" she asked a little abruptly.

"They _did not get what they wanted_."

Elizabeth started a little, and shivered, and tears began to
come again.

"What's to hinder their being discouraged, Mr. Landholm?" she
asked in a tone that was a little querulous.

"Believing God's word."

So sweet the words came, her tears ceased