"Unloving words are meant to make us gentle, and delays teach patience, and care teaches faith, and press of business makes us look out for minutes to give to God, and disappointment is a special messenger to summon our thoughts to heaven." ¹ IV. "To strive each day to do the wonted service more perfectly; to infuse and maintain in every detail a purer motive; to master each impulse, and bring each thought under a holier discipline; to be blameless in word; to sacrifice self, as an habitual law, in each sudden call to action; to take more and more secretly the lowest place; to move amid constant distractions, and above them, undisturbedly; to be content to do nothing that attracts notice, but to do it always for the greater glory of God." ² V. "Go forth then with boldness to suffer, as your Lord has suffered before you; endeavour to embrace with calmness, and even with joyfulness, the pain or the sorrow which he brings you, and which is but doubled by the lingering will, the timid withdrawal." ³ ¹ E. M. Sewell. ² T. T. Carter. ³ Skeflington. This was all; but at the close was written in small letters: "Ethel: November: Sunday evening." "Why, Nigel, how do you do? I wasn't told that you were here." Nigel woke up from abstraction and shook hands. "This is yours," he said. "I found it, and—read the sentences. Do you mind?" Ethel coloured faintly. "Oh, I could not think where it was gone. I was reading 'Voices of Comfort' to mother, and I had a fancy afterwards to copy out those few pieces. How stupid of me to leave it about!" She held out her hand, and Nigel said, "I suppose I mustn't ask to keep the paper." "Why—you don't want it?" "Yes." "I don't mind, of course—only—" "Then I may. I'll make another copy for you." "I don't really need it—only—it was just a fancy, you know." "Yes. Were you feeling particularly cheerful on Sunday evening?" Ethel looked up, smiling. "Now, why must you ask that?" "I should like to know. I don't trace the connection between all the extracts." "Perhaps I'll tell you some day. Not this morning. I have not time." "And I am taking up your time. But I don't seem to have seen anything of you yet." "No. And I didn't mean—only it would be a long talk to go into those extracts. And I have everything to see to. But I don't mind saying—no, I wasn't very cheerful on Sunday evening. I wanted to go to church, and I couldn't be spared. Mother was poorly, and everything seemed awry, and I found myself on the edge of grumbles. So I looked out something to do me good." "Perhaps it will do me good too. Ethel, your mother will spare you to-day." "What for?" He handed her Mr. Carden-Cox's note. Ethel read it with a flush of delight. "Oh, that would be nice! That would be delightful!" Then a shade of doubt came. "But I am afraid I can't."