th not
value the delicates of the Father's house--he hath no taste for them.
The husks are better, to his palate. What wonder, then, if he tarry yet
in the far country?"

"But how are you to get him to change his taste, Mrs Dorothy?"

"Neither you nor he can do that, my dear. Most times, either the husks
run short, or he gets cloyed with them. That is, if he ever go back to
the Father. For some never do, Phoebe--they stay on in the far country,
and find the husks sweet to the end."

"That must be saddest of all," said Phoebe, sorrowfully.

"It is saddest of all. Ah, child!--thank thy Father, if He have made
thy husks taste bitter."

"But all things are not husks, Mrs Dorothy!"

"Certainly not, my dear. Delight in the Lord's works in nature, or in
the pleasures of the intellect such things as these are right enough in
their place, Phoebe. The danger is of putting them into God's place."

"Mrs Dolly," asked Phoebe, gravely, "do you think that when we care
very much for a person or a thing, we put it into God's place?"

"If you care more for it than you do for Him. Not otherwise."

"How is one to know that?"

"Ask your own heart how you would feel if God demanded it from you."

"How ought I to feel?"

"Sorry, perhaps; but not resentful. Not as though the Lord had no right
to ask this at your hands. Grief is allowed; 'tis murmuring that
displeases Him."

When Mrs Dorothy said this, Phoebe felt conscious of a dim conviction,
buried somewhere very deep down, that there was something which she
hoped God would not demand from her. She did not know herself what it
was. It was not exactly that she would refuse to give it up; but rather
that she hoped she would never be called upon to do it--that if she were
it would be a very hard thing to do.

Phoebe left the Maidens' Lodge, and walked slowly across the Park to
White-Ladies. She was feeling for the unknown cause of this sentiment
of vague soreness at her heart. She had not found it, when a voice
broke in upon her meditations.

"Mrs Latrobe?"

Phoebe came to a sudden stop, and with her heart heating wildly, looked
up into the face of Osmund Derwent.

"I am too happy to have met with you," said he. "I was on my way to
White-Ladies. May I presume to ask your good offices, Mrs Phoebe, to
favour me so far as to present me to Madam Furnival!"

Phoebe courtesied her assent.

"Mrs Rhoda, I trust, is well?"

"She is very well, I thank you."

"I