Our life is twofold; and of that double life, which, like all of us, Rachel bore within her, we have as yet said but little. She was now twenty six; a tall, thin, sallow woman, ungraceful, of shy manners, and but little speech; but with a gentle face, a broad forehead, and large brown eyes. By trade, she was a dress-maker, of small pretensions; her father had forsaken her early, and her step-mother had reared her. This much, knew the little world in which moved Rachel Gray, this much, and no more. We may add, that this some little world had, in its wisdom, pronounced Rachel Gray a fool. Her education had been very limited. She knew how to read, and she could write, but neither easily nor well. For though God had bestowed on her the rare dower of a fine mind, He had not added to it the much more common, though infinitely less precious gift, of a quick intellect. She learned slowly, with great difficulty, with sore pain and trouble. Her teachers, one and all, pronounced her dull; her step-mother was ashamed of her, and to her dying day thought Rachel no better than a simpleton. Rachel felt this keenly; but she had no means of self-defence. She had not the least idea of how she could prove that she was not an idiot. One of the characteristics of childhood and of youth is a painful inability, an entire powerlessness of giving the form of speech to its deepest and most fervent feelings. The infirmity generally dies off with years, perhaps because also dies off the very strength of those feelings; but even as they were to last for ever with Rachel Gray, so was that infirmity destined to endure. Shy, sensitive, and nervous, she was a noble book, sealed to all save God. At eleven, her education, such as it was, was over. Rachel had to work, and earn her bread. She was reared religiously, and hers was a deeply religious nature. The misapplication of religion narrows still more a narrow mind, but religion, taken in its true sense, enlarges a noble one. Yet, not without strife, not without suffering, did Rachel make her way. She was ignorant, and she was alone; how to ask advice she knew not, for she could not explain herself. Sometimes she seemed to see the most sublime truths, plain as in a book; at other times, they floated dark and clouded before her gaze, or vanished in deep obscurity, and left her alone and cast down. She suffered years, until, from her very sufferings, perfect faith was born, and from faith unbounded trust in God, after which her soul sank in deep and blessed peace.