renew our old friendship again, and beg your pardon for my
breach of it; and if you can forgive me, you are the best of women."
"Oh," says Mrs. Bargrave, "do not mention such a thing; I have not had
an uneasy thought about it." "What did you think of me?" says Mrs.
Veal. Says Mrs. Bargrave, "I thought you were like the rest of the
world, and that prosperity had made you forget yourself and me." Then
Mrs. Veal reminded Mrs. Bargrave of the many friendly offices she did
her in former days, and much of the conversation they had with each
other in the times of their adversity; what books they read, and
what comfort in particular they received from Drelincourt's _Book of
Death_, which was the best, she said, on the subject ever wrote.
She also mentioned Doctor Sherlock, and two Dutch books, which were
translated, wrote upon death, and several others. But Drelincourt, she
said, had the clearest notions of death and of the future state of any
who had handled that subject. Then she asked Mrs. Bargrave whether she
had Drelincourt. She said, "Yes." Says Mrs. Veal, "Fetch it." And so
Mrs. Bargrave goes up-stairs and brings it down. Says Mrs. Veal, "Dear
Mrs. Bargrave, if the eyes of our faith were as open as the eyes of
our body, we should see numbers of angels about us for our guard.
The notions we have of Heaven now are nothing like what it is, as
Drelincourt says; therefore be comforted under your afflictions, and
believe that the Almighty has a particular regard to you, and that
your afflictions are marks of God's favor; and when they have done
the business they are sent for, they shall be removed from you. And
believe me, my dear friend, believe what I say to you, one minute of
future happiness will infinitely reward you for all your sufferings.
For I can never believe" (and claps her hand upon her knee with great
earnestness, which, indeed, ran through most of her discourse) "that
ever God will suffer you to spend all your days in this afflicted
state. But be assured that your afflictions shall leave you, or you
them, in a short time." She spake in that pathetical and heavenly
manner that Mrs. Bargrave wept several times, she was so deeply
affected with it.

Then Mrs. Veal mentioned Doctor Kendrick's _Ascetic_, at the end of
which he gives an account of the lives of the primitive Christians.
Their pattern she recommended to our imitation, and said, "Their
conversation was not like this of our age. For now," says she, "there