Mrs. Landor made no immediate answer. She was a graceful woman, over middle height, and perhaps beyond middle age, with hair already silvered, and a certain innate queenliness of bearing, not lessened by the severe plainness of her black merino dress and close gray bonnet. Serene eyes beneath a broad brow studied the pretty woman opposite—for Mrs. Mackenzie, wife of the Manager of West Norton Bank, was a decidedly pretty woman still, despite her forty years. She might have been a very attractive one, had her lips fallen habitually into less fretted curves; had her blue eyes been habitually less full of trouble and self-condolence. "Still if you do not feel that you can spare her—" "I don't suppose it will make much difference. She has to go some day, and the visit may as well be got over. Euphrasia would not like to give it up, and any time, almost, would be as bad. Women's lives are just made up of harass and bother." "Are they?" queried Mrs. Landor soberly. "Mrs. Mackenzie, if I didn't know you quite so well, I should venture to say something . . . One can speak more freely, I think, on some subjects as a stranger than as a friend." "I hope she isn't going to begin preaching," darted through Mrs. Mackenzie's mind. And then came a swift recollection of innumerable kindnesses, followed by the resolve, "I mustn't seem to be vexed." Aloud she said cautiously, "I should think you might say anything you liked to me!" "Then may I ask a question? You have a good deal to say about harass and worry, and, of course, life does mean a fair amount of them for most people. Yet there is another side of the question. I wonder whether that side ever presents itself to you . . . When our Lord said, 'Come unto Me . . . and I will give you rest'—what do you think He really intended to do? Is absolute rest a thing compatible with perpetual mental harass? For surely harass means unrest! If the two are not compatible—then, what did He mean?" Mrs. Mackenzie was silent. "If I were you, I would find an answer to that question," continued Mrs. Landor softly. She was not at all a demonstrative person, but for once she stooped and kissed the plaintive downcast face. "We may be sure of one thing, that what Christ said, He meant, and that what He meant was something very real and practical . . . Perhaps the question resolves itself into not so much what HE means by rest, as what 'we' mean when we ask for rest; and whether we ever do actually take Him at His word! . . . It seems such a pity, if He is willing and waiting to give us rest, that we don't trouble ourselves to receive it . . . Forgive me for saying so much. Good-bye."