e's balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole.
There's power enough in Jesus
To save a sin-sick soul."

The closing prayer followed, which almost broke Eleanor's heart in two;
it so dealt with her and for her. While some of those present were
afterward exchanging low words and shakes of the hand, she slipped away
and mounted her pony.

She was in dreadful confusion during the first part of her ride. Half
resentful, half broken-hearted. It was the last time, she said to
herself, that ever she would be found in a meeting like that. She would
never go again; to make herself a mark for people's sympathy and a
subject for people's prayers. And yet--surely the human mind seems an
inconsistent thing at times,--the thought of that sympathy and those
prayers had a touch of sweetness in it, which presently drew a flood of
tears from Eleanor's eyes. There was one old man in particular, of
venerable appearance, who had given a most dignified testimony of faith
and happiness, whose "Amen!" recurred to her. It was uttered at the
close of a petition Mr. Rhys had made in her favour; and Eleanor
recalled it now with a strange mixture of feelings. Why was she so
different from him and from the rest of those good people? She knew her
duty; why was it not done? She seemed to herself more hard-hearted and
evil than Eleanor would formerly have supposed possible of her; she had
never liked herself less than she did during this ride home. Her mind
was in a rare turmoil, of humiliation and darkness and sorrow; one
thing only was clear; that she never would go to a class-meeting again!
And yet it would be wrong to say that she was on the whole sorry she
had gone once, or that she really regretted anything that had been done
or said. But this once should suffice her. So she went along, dropping
tears from her eyes and letting Powis find his way as he pleased; which
he was quite competent to do.

By degrees her eyes cleared to see how lovely the evening was falling.
The air sweet with exhalations from the hedge-rows and meadows, yes and
from the more distant hills too; fragrant and balmy. The cattle were
going home from the fields; smoke curled up from a hundred chimney tops
along the hillsides and the valley bottom; the evening light spread
here and there in a broad glow of colour; fair snatches of light were
all that in many a place the hills and the bottom could catch. Every
turn in the winding valley brought a new combination of won