The Old Helmet. Volume II

Eleanor asked what for?

"Do, for once; and I will take you a drive in the Domain."

"What Domain? yours, do you mean?"

"Not exactly. I have not got so far as that. No; it's the Government Domain – everybody rides and drives there, and almost everybody goes at six o'clock. It's worth going; botanical gardens, and all that sort of thing."

Eleanor swiftly thought, that it was scarce likely Mr. Amos would have her letters for her, or at least bring them, so early as that; and she might as well indulge her host's fancy if not her own. She agreed to the proposal, and Mrs. Esthwaite went rejoicing with her to her room.

"You'll like it," she said. "The botanical gardens are beautiful, and I dare say you will know a great deal more about them than I do. O it's delightful to have you here! I only cannot bear to think you must go away again."

"You are very kind to me," said Eleanor gratefully. "My dear aunt Caxton will be made glad to know what friends I have found among strangers."

"Don't speak about it!" said Mrs. Esthwaite, her eyes fairly glistening with earnestness. "I am sure if Egbert can do anything he will be too glad. Now won't you do just as if you were at home? I want you to be completely at home with us – now and always. You must feel very much the want of your old home in England! being so far from it, too."

"Heaven is my home," said Eleanor cheerfully; "I do not feel the loss of England so much as you think. That other home always seems near."

"Does it?" said Mrs. Esthwaite. "It seems such an immense way off, to me!"

"I used to think so; but it is near to me now. So it does not so much matter whereabouts on the earth I am."

"It must be nice to feel so!" said Mrs. Esthwaite with an unconscious sigh.

"Do you not feel so?" Eleanor asked.

"O no. I do not know anything about it. I am not good – like you."

"It is not goodness – not my goodness – that makes heaven my home," said

Eleanor smiling at her and taking her hands.

"But I am sure you are good?" said Mrs. Esthwaite earnestly.

"Just as you are, – except for the grace of God, which is free to all."

"But," said Mrs. Esthwaite looking at her as if she were something hardly of earth like ordinary mortals, – "I have not given up the world as you have. I cannot. I like it too well."

"I have not given it up either," said Eleanor smiling again; "not in the sense you mean. I have not given up anything but sin. I enjoy everything else in the world as much as you do."

"What do you mean?" said Mrs. Esthwaite, much bewildered.

"Only this," said Eleanor, with very sweet gravity now. "I do not love anything that my King hates. All that I have given up, and all that leads to it; but I am all the more free to enjoy everything that is really worth enjoying, quite as well as you can, or any body else."

"But – you do not go to parties and dances, and you do not drink wine, and the theatre, and all that sort of thing; do you?"

"I do not love anything that my King hates," said Eleanor shaking her head gently.

"But dancing, and wine, – what harm is in them?"

"Think what they lead to! – "

"Well wine – excuse me, I know so little about these things! and I want to know what you think; – wine, I know, if people will drink too much, – but what harm is in dancing?"

"None that I know of," said Eleanor, – "if it were always suited to womanly delicacy, and if it took one into the society of those that love Christ – or helped one to witness for him before those who do not."

"Well, I will tell you the truth," said Mrs. Esthwaite with a sort of penitent laugh, – "I love dancing."

"Ay, but I love Christ," said Eleanor; "and whatever is not for his honour I am glad to give up. It is no cross to me. I used to like some things too; but now I love Him; and his will is my will."

"Ah, that is what I said! you are good, that is the reason. I can't help doing wrong things, even if I want to do it ever so much, and when I know they are wrong; and I shouldn't like to give up anything."

"Listen," said Eleanor, holding her hands fast. "It is not that I am good. It is that I love Jesus and he helps me. I cannot do anything of myself – I cannot give up anything – but I trust in my Lord and he does it for me. It is he that does all in me that you would call good."

"Ah, but you love him."

"Should I not?" said Eleanor, "when he loved me, and gave himself for me, that he might bring me from myself and sin to know him and be happy."

"And you are happy, are you not?" said Mrs. Esthwaite, looking at her as if it were something that she had come to believe against evidence. There was good evidence for it now, in Eleanor's smile; which would bear studying.

"There is nothing but happiness where Christ is."

"But I couldn't understand it – those places where you are going are so dreadful; – and why you should go there at all – "

"No, you do not understand, and cannot till you try it. I have such joy in the love of Christ sometimes, that I wish for nothing so much in the world, as to bring others to know what I know!"

There was power in the lighting face, which Mrs. Esthwaite gazed at and wondered.

"I think I am willing to go anywhere and do anything, which my King may give me, in that service."

"To be sure," said Mrs. Esthwaite, as if adding a convincing corollary from her own mind, – "you have some other reason to wish to get there – to the Islands, I mean."

That brought a flood of crimson over Eleanor's face; she let go her hostess's hands and turned away.

"But there was something else I wanted to ask," said Mrs. Esthwaite hastily. "Egbert said – Are you very tired, my dear?"

"Not at all, I assure you."

"Egbert said there was some most beautiful singing as he came up alongside the ship to-day – was it you?"

"In part it was I."

"He said it was hymns. Won't you sing me one?"

Eleanor liked it very well; it suited her better than talking. They sat down together, and Eleanor sang:

"'There's balm in Gilead,
To make the wounded whole.
There's power enough in Jesus
To save a sin-sick soul.'"