e light was fair and beautiful yet,
for the ride was of some length. It was not on the way to the village;
it turned off from the fine high road to a less practised and more
uneven track. It was good for horses; and riding in front, a little
ahead of her companions, Eleanor had the luxury of being alone. Why had
Mrs. Caxton bade her "settle that question" to-night? How could she;
when her mind was in so much darkness and confusion on the subject? Yet
Eleanor hardly knew specifically what the hindrance was; only it was
certain that while she wished and intended to be a Christian, she was
no nearer the point, so far as she could see, than she had been months
ago. Nay, Eleanor confessed to herself that in the sweet quiet and
peace of her aunt's house, and in her own release from pressing
trouble, she had rather let all troublesome thoughts slip away from
her; so that, though not forgotten, the subject had been less painfully
on her mind than through the weeks that went before her coming to
Plassy. She had wished for leisure and quiet to attend to it and put
that pain to rest for ever; and in leisure and quiet she had suffered
pain to go to sleep in a natural way and left all the business of
dealing with it to be deferred till the time of its waking. How was all
this? Eleanor walked her pony slowly along, and thought. _Then_ she had
been freshly under the influence of Mr. Rhys and his preaching; the
very remembrance of which, now and here, stirred her like an alarum
bell. Ay, and more than that; it wakened the keen longing for that
beauty and strength of life which had so shewn her her own poverty.
Humbled and sad, Eleanor walked her pony on and on, while each little
crystal torrent that came with its sweet clear rush and sparkle down
the rocks, tinkled its own little silver bell note in her ears; a note
of purity and action. Eleanor had never heard it from them before; now
somehow each rushing streamlet, with its bright leap over obstacles and
its joyous dash onward in its course, sounded the same note. Nothing
could be more lovely than these cascades; every one different from the
others, as if to shew how many forms of beauty water could take.
Eleanor noticed and heard them every one and the call of every one, and
rode on in a pensive mood till Mrs. Pynce's cottage was passed and the
turn in the valley just beyond opened up a new scene for her.

How lovely! how various! The straitened dell spread out gradually from
this p