"Just so, Thomas," said the vicar. "I can easily understand that when once she has broken through her reserve with me, or suffered you to break through it for her, she will be able better to bear the full disclosure, from having part of the weight already removed from her heart." "That's just my view," said Bradly, "and I've told her so more than once. I'm sure she'll feel lighter in her heart when once she has fully made up her mind that you shall know all, even before you've heard a word of her story; and I'm sure she sees it so now herself. So, if it won't be troubling you too much to ask you to step over to our house to- morrow night about seven o'clock, unless I send you back word, we'll have the best parlour all to ourselves, and I believe the Lord will make it a blessed night for poor Jane and for us all." "It shall be so then, Thomas," replied the vicar. "I will, if spared, be at your house at seven o'clock, unless I hear anything meanwhile to the contrary from yourself." It was with a feeling of deep interest, and a fervent prayer for a blessing, that Ernest Maltby knocked the next evening at the door of Thomas Bradly's quiet dwelling. Thomas welcomed him with a smile. "It'll be all right, I know," he said; "I've told her you're coming, and she has made no objection; and now that the time's come, the Lord has taken away the worst of the fear." The vicar entered, and found the invalid seated by a bright fire, with her little table and the Bible on it by her side. Her poor wan cheeks were flushed with a deeper colour than usual as she rose to greet the clergyman; but there was not so much a look of suffering now in her eyes, as of hopeful, humble, patient trust. Her needlework lay near her Bible, for her skilful fingers were never idle. Her brother set a chair for their visitor near the fire, and seated himself by him. For a moment no one spoke; then Jane handed the Bible to Mr Maltby, who opened it and read the Hundred and Forty-Second Psalm, giving special emphasis to the words of the third verse, "When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path." He offered a short prayer after the reading, and then waited for either brother or sister to spread out the trouble before him.