"Thou dost well to ask, _Nell_," quoth she, "for there be divers sorts of depths. There be mind depths, the which are at times, as _Milly_ saith, displeasant: at other times not displeasant. But there be soul depths for the which displeasant is no word. When the Lord seems to shut every door in thy face and to leave thee shut up in a well, where thou canst not breathe, and when thou seest no escape, and when thou criest and shoutest, He shutteth out thy prayer: when thine heaven above thee is as brass, and thine earth below thee iron: when it seems as if no God were, either to hear thee or to do for thee--that is a deep pit to get in, _Helen_, and not a pleasant one." "Aunt _Joyce_! can such a feeling be--at the least to one that feareth God?" "Ay, it can, _Nelly_!" saith Aunt _Joyce_, solemnly, yet with much tenderness. "And when thou comest into such a slough as that, may God have mercy upon thee!" And methought, looking in Aunt _Joyce's_ eyes, that at some past time of her life she had been in right such an one. "It sounds awful!" saith _Milisent_, under her breath. "It may be," saith Aunt _Joyce_, looking from the window, and after a fashion as though she spake to herself rather than to us, "that there be some souls whom the Lord suffers not to pass through such quagmires. May-be He only leads the strongest souls into the deepest places. I say not that there be not deeps beyond any I know. Yet I know of sloughs wherein I had been lost and smothered, had He not held mine hand tight, and watched that the dark waters washed not over mine head too far for life. That word, `the fellowship of His passions,' hath a long tether. For He went down to Hell." "But, _Aunt_, would you say that meant the place of lost souls?" saith _Helen_. "I am wholesomely 'feared of laying down the law, _Nell_," saith Aunt _Joyce_, "touching such matters as I can but see through a glass darkly. What He means, He knoweth. But the place of departed spirits can it scarce fail to be." "Aunt _Joyce_," saith _Helen_, laying down her work, "I trust it is not ill in me to say thus, but in very deed I do alway feel 'feared of what shall be after death. If we might but know where we shall be, and with whom, and what we shall have to do--it all looks so dark!" "Had it been good for us, we should have known," saith Aunt _Joyce_. "And two points we do know. `With _Christ_,' and `far better.' Is that not enough for those that are His friends?" "`If it were not so, I would have told you,'" saith my Lady _Stafford_. "But not _how_, Madam, an' it please you?" asks _Helen_. "If there were not room; if there were not happiness." "I take it," saith Aunt _Joyce_, "if there were not all that for which my nature doth crave. But, mark you, my renewed nature." "Then surely we must know our friends again?" saith _Helen_.