valuable purchase."

Even Mr Raymond was a welcome change from her.

"Then tell me, Mr Raymond," said I, "do things ever happen exactly as
one wishes them to do?"

"Once in a thousand times, perhaps," said he. "I should imagine,
though, that the occasion usually comes after long waiting and bitter
pain. Generally there is something to remind us that this is not our
rest."

"Why?" I said, and I heard my soul go into the word.

"Why not?" answered he, pithily. "Is the servant so much greater than
his Lord that he may reasonably look for things to be otherwise? Cast
your mind's eye over the life of Christ our Master, and see on how many
occasions matters happened in a way which you would suppose entirely to
His liking? Can you name one?"

I thought, and could not see anything, except when He did a miracle, or
when He spent a night in prayer to God.

"I give you those nights of prayer," said Mr Raymond. "But I think you
must yield me the miracles. Unquestionably it must have given Him
pleasure to relieve pain; but see how much pain to Himself was often
mixed in it!--`Looking up to Heaven, He sighed' ere He did one; He wept,
just before performing another; He cried, `How long shall I be with you,
and suffer you!' ere he worked a third. No, Miss Courtenay, the
miracles of our Divine Master were not all pleasure to Himself. Indeed,
I should be inclined to venture further, and ask if we have no hint that
they were wrought at a considerable cost to Himself. He `took our
infirmities, and bare our sicknesses'; He knew when `virtue had gone out
of Him.' That may mean only that His Divine knowledge was conscious of
it; but taking both passages together, is it not possible that His
wonderful works were wrought at personal expense--that His human body
suffered weakness, faintness, perhaps acute pain, as the natural
consequence of doing them? You will understand that I merely throw out
the hint. Scripture does not speak decisively; and where God does not
decide, it is well for men to be cautious."

"Mr Raymond," I exclaimed, "how can you be a Whig?"

"Pardon me, but what is the connection?" asked he, looking both
astonished and diverted.

"Don't you see it? You are much too good for one."

Mr Raymond laughed. "Thank you; I fear I did not detect the
compliment. May I put the counter question, and ask how you came to be
a Tory?"

"Why, I was born so," said I.

"And so was I a Whig," replied he.

"Excu