preach again, Julia, that you know
of?"

"I guess not. He was very tired after he preached the other night; he
lay on the couch and did not move the whole next day. He is better
to-day."

"You have seen him this morning?"

"O yes. I see him every day; and he teaches me a great many things. But
he always prays for you."

Eleanor did not wish to keep up the conversation, and it dropped. And
after that, things went on their train.

It was a very fast train, too; and growing in importance and thickening
in its urgency of speed. Every day the preparations converged more
nearly towards their great focus, the twenty-first of December. Eleanor
felt the whirl of circumstances, felt borne off her feet and carried
away with them; and felt it hopelessly. She knew not what to urge that
should be considered sufficient reason either by her mother or Mr.
Carlisle for even delaying, much less breaking off the match. She was
grave and proud, and unsatisfactory, as much as it was in her nature to
be, partly on purpose; and Mr. Carlisle was not satisfied, and hurried
on things all the more. He kept his temper perfectly, whatever thoughts
he had; he rode and walked with Eleanor, when she would go, with the
same cool and faultless manner; when she would not, he sometimes let it
pass and sometimes made her go; but once or twice he failed in doing
this; and recognized the possibility of Eleanor's ability to give him
trouble. He knew his own power however; on the whole he liked her quite
as well for it.

"What is the matter with you, my darling?" he said one day. "You are
not like yourself."

"I am not happy," said Eleanor. "I told you I had a doubt unsettled
upon my mind; and till that doubt is put at rest I cannot be happy; I
cannot have peace; you will take no pleasure in me."

"Why do you not settle it then?" said Mr. Carlisle, quietly.

"Because I have no chance. I have not a moment to think, in this whirl
where I am living. If you would put off the twenty-first of next month
to the twenty-first of some month in the spring--or summer--I might
have a breathing place, and get myself in order. I cannot, now."

"You will have time to think, love, when you get to the Priory," Mr.
Carlisle observed in the same tone--an absolute tone.

"Yes. I know how that would be!" Eleanor answered bitterly. "But I can
take no pleasure in anything,--I cannot have any rest or comfort,--as
long as I know that if anything happened to me--if death c