per-case.

"What sort of a clergyman have you at home?" Mrs. Caxton asked. She had
not spoken till then.

"He is a kind old man--he is a good man," Eleanor said, picking for
words; "I like him. He is not a very interesting preacher."

"Did you ever hold any talk with him on your thoughts of hope, and
fear?"

"I could not, ma'am. I have tried; but I could not bring him to the
point. He referred me to confirmation and to doing my duty; he did not
help me."

"It is not a happy circumstance, that his public teaching should raise
questions which his private teaching cannot answer."

"O it did not!" said Eleanor. "Dr. Cairnes never raised a question in
anybody's mind, I am sure; never in mine."

"The light that sprung up in your mind then, came you do not know
whence?"

"Yes, ma'am, I do," said Eleanor with a little difficulty. "It came
from the words and teaching of a living example. But in me it seems to
be only darkness."

Mrs. Caxton said no more, and Eleanor added no more. The servants came
in to family prayer; and then they took their candies and bade each
other an affectionate good night. And Eleanor slept that night without
dreaming.

CHAPTER XVII.

AT GLANOG.

"For something that abode endued
With temple-like repose, an air
Of life's kind purposes pursued
With order'd freedom sweet and fair,
A tent pitched in a world not right
It seem'd, whose inmates, every one,
On tranquil faces, bore the light
Of duties beautifully done."

How did the days pass after that? In restless anxiety, with Eleanor; in
miserable uncertainty and remorse and sorrow. She counted the hours
till her despatch could be in Mr. Carlisle's hands; then she figured to
herself the pain it would cause him; then she doubted fearfully what
the immediate effect would be. It might be, to bring him down to Plassy
with the utmost speed of post-horses; and again Eleanor reckoned the
stages and estimated the speed at which Mr. Carlisle's postillions
could be made to travel, and the time when it would be possible for
this storm to burst upon Plassy. That day Eleanor begged the pony and
went out. She wandered for hours, among unnumbered, and almost
unheeded, beauties of mountain and vale; came home at a late hour, and
crept in by a back entrance. No stranger had come; the storm had not
burst yet; and Mrs. Caxton was moved to pity all the supper time and
hours of the evening, at the state of fear and constraint in wh