will call at your house to inquire after her
health, hoping and trusting that the hour will come when she
will cease to shut her doors against one commissioned by our
Lord, to bear words of peace to the wretched, and of pardon to
the guilty. Whatever you can do to hasten that moment, I know
you will do, my good friend, and so farewell to you."

"Good-night to you, and thank you kindly, Mr. Lacy; it must be
a heavy heart indeed, that goes away from you no lighter than
when it came to you;" and so saying, Mrs. Denley put on her
cloak, took up her lanthorn, and trudged home, through the
dark streets of the old town.

The next morning Mr. Lacy's thoughts were divided between the
joyful contemplations which the holy festival it was ushering
in was calculated to inspire, and the painful solicitude which
the conversation of the preceding evening had left on his
mind. In church, however, the latter feeling subsided, and
gave way to that earnest calmness, and that intense devotion,
which absorb for the time the cares and troubles of the soul,
"like motes in light divine." When from the pulpit this aged
minister dwelt in glowing words on the communion between the
saints above and the saints below; on the link that unites the
church militant here on earth with the church triumphant in
Heaven; above all, when in terms of the deepest reverence and
of the intensest love, he spoke of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
prayed that he himself, and all those who joined with him in
prayer that day, might each, in God's own time, enter into the
fulness of his presence, and worship in his courts evermore,
yea in time and in eternity, there was something so ardent in
his aspirations, and yet so chastened in his devotion, that
the assembled multitude heard him with a reverence, mingled
with awe; they felt as if Elijah's car of fire might bear him
away from their sight; from the shelter of the sanctuary on
earth to the glories of the new Jerusalem on high.

After the conclusion of the sermon, Mr. Lacy remained absorbed
in earnest prayer, till the last of the worshippers had
withdrawn, and the parting strain from the organ had died away
on the walls of the cathedral. As he was slowly descending the
aisle, he paused before the place where Mrs. Rodney had been
seated some days before; as he stood musing on the account
which he had heard of her from Mrs. Denley, he observed a few
lines written in pencil on the column against which she had
been in