thinking of something, with those quiet walls of home around her--the open door, the open window, and no one else visible in the serene and peaceful house, she made, in her fair and thoughtful young womanhood, as sweet a type as one could desire of the serene and happy confidence of a quiet English home. She did not observe any one passing; she was not thinking, perhaps, of any one hereabout who was like to pass--but she heard a step entering at the door. She scarcely looked up, thinking it some member of the family--scarcely moved even when the door of the parlour opened wider, and the step came in. Then she looked up--started up--let her work drop out of her hands, and, gazing with eagerness in the bronzed face of the stranger, uttered a wondering exclamation. He hastened to her, holding out his hand. “Mr Rivers?” cried Agnes, in extreme surprise and agitation--“is it _you_?” What he said was some hasty faltering expressions of delight in seeing her, and they gazed at each other with their mutual “interest,” glad, yet constrained. “We have tried often to find out where you were,” said Agnes--“I mean Louis; he has been very anxious. Have you seen him? When did you come home?” “I have seen no one save you.” “But Louis has been very anxious,” said Agnes, with a little confusion. “We have all tried to discover where you were. Is it wrong to ask where you have been?” But Lionel did not at all attend to her questions. He was less self-possessed than she was; he seemed to have only one idea at the present moment, so far as was visible, and that he simply expressed over again--“I am very glad--happy--to see you here and alone.” “Oh!” said Agnes with a nervous tremor--“I--I was asking, Mr Rivers, where you had been?” This time he began to attend to her. “I have been everywhere,” he said, “except where pleasure was. I have been on fields of battles--in places of wretchedness. I have come to tell you something--you only. Do you remember our conversation once by Badgeley Wood?” “Yes.” “You gave me a talisman, Agnes,” said the speaker, growing more excited; “I have carried it all over the world.” “Well,” said Agnes as he paused. She looked at him very earnestly, without even a blush at the sound of her own name. “Well--better than well!” cried Lionel; “wonderful--invincible--divine! I went to try your spell--I who trusted nothing--at the moment when everything had failed me--even you. I put yonder sublime Friend of yours to the experiment--I dared to do it! I took his name to the sorrowful, as you bade me. I cast out devils with his name, as the sorcerers tried to do. I put all the hope I could have in life upon the trial. Now I come to tell you the issue; it is fit that you should know.” Agnes leaned forward towards him, listening eagerly; she could not quite tell what she expected--a confession of faith.