stop to
think about it. Her heart was full, full, under the appeals made and
the working of conscience with them; conscience and tenderer feelings,
which strove together and yet found no rest; and this action the sight
of Mr. Carlisle rather intensified. Were her head but covered by that
helmet of salvation, under which others lived and walked so royally
secure,--and she could bid defiance to any disturbing force that could
meet her, she thought, in this world.

It was while Eleanor's head was yet bowed, and her heart busy with
these struggling feelings, that she heard an invitation given to all
people who were not at peace in their hearts and who desired that
Christians should pray for them,--to come forward and so signify their
wish. Eleanor did not understand what this could mean; and hearing a
stir in the church, she looked up, if perhaps her eyes might give her
information. To her surprise she saw that numbers of people were
leaving their seats, and going forward to what she would have called
the chancel rails, where they all knelt down. All these persons, then,
were in like condition with her; unhappy in the consciousness of their
wants, and not knowing how to supply them. So many! And so many willing
openly to confess it. Eleanor's heart moved strangely towards them. And
then darted into her head an impulse, quick as lightning and almost as
startling, that she should join herself to them and go forward as they
were doing. Was not her heart mourning for the very same want that they
felt? She had reason enough. No one in that room sought the forgiveness
of God and peace with him more earnestly than she, nor with a sorer
heart; nor felt more ignorant how to gain it. Together with that
another thought, both of them acting with the swiftness and power of a
lightning flash, moved Eleanor. Would it not utterly disgust Mr.
Carlisle, if she took this step? would he wish to have any more to do
with her, after she should have gone forward publicly to ask for
prayers in a Wesleyan chapel? It would prove to him at least how far
apart they were in all their views and feelings. It would clear her way
for her; and the next moment, doing it cunningly that she might not be
intercepted, Eleanor Powle slipped out of her seat with a quick
movement, just before some one else who was coming up the aisle, and so
put that person for that one second of danger between her and the
waiting figure whom she knew without looking at. That second