"No," she answered. "It cannot. But can it not be compensated? If thou lose a necklace of gilt copper, and one give thee a gold carcanet instead, hast thou really sustained any loss?" "Yes!" I answered, almost astonished at my own boldness. "If the copper carcanet were a love-gift from the dead, what gold could make up to me for that?" "Ah, my child!" she replied, with a quick change in her tone. It was almost as if she had said,—"I did not understand thee to mean _that_!"—"For those losses of the heart there is but one remedy. But there is one." "Costly and far-fetched, methinks!" said I, sighing. "Costly, ay, in truth," she replied; "but far-fetched? No. It is close to thee, if thou wilt but stretch forth thine hand and grasp it." "What, holy Mother?" Her voice sank to a low and very reverent tone. "’Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.’" "I cannot!" I sobbed. "No, thou couldst not," she said quietly, "until thou lovest the will of Him that died for thee, better than thou lovest the will of Hélène de Lusignan." "O holy Mother!" I cried. "I could not set up my will against the good God!" "Couldst thou not?" was all she said. "Have I done that?" I faltered. "Ask thine own conscience," replied Lady Judith. "Dear child, He loved not His will when He came down from Heaven, to do the will of God His Father. That will was to save His Church. Little Helena, was it to save thee?" "How can I know, holy Mother?" "It is worth knowing," she said. "Yes, it is worth knowing," said I, "but how can we know?" "What wouldst thou give to know it? Not that it can be bought: but what is it worth in thine eyes?" I thought, and thought, but I could not tell wherewith to measure any thing so intangible. "Wouldst thou give up having thine own will for one year?" she asked. "I know not what might happen in it," said I, with a rather frightened feeling. Why, I might marry, or be ill, or die. Or Guy might give over loving me altogether, in that year. Oh, I could not, could not will that! And a year is such a long, long time. No, I could not—for such a time as that—let myself slip into nothing, as it were. "Helena," she said, "suppose, at this moment, God were to send an angel down to thee from Heaven. Suppose he brought to thee a message from God Himself, that if thou wouldst be content to leave all things to His ordering for one year, and to have no will at all in the matter, He would see that nothing was done which should really harm thee in the least. What wouldst thou say?" "Oh, then I should dare to leave it!" said I. "My child, if thou art of His redeemed, He has said it—not for one short year, but for all thy life. _If_, Helena!" "Ah,—if!" I said with a sigh. Lady Judith wrought at her gold diapering, and I at my roses, and we were both silent for a season. Then the Lady Queen and the Lady Isabel came in, and there was no further opportunity for quiet conversation. *CHAPTER VII.*