islike to
the notoriety of her faith-cures. She told of her own struggles and of
the grave questions she might soon have to settle. Should she yield, if
ever so little, to the demands of one who was to be her husband? Or
should she maintain her course as she had begun? And what if it should
ever come to be a question of breaking her engagement? This last was
spoken with faltering, for at the very suggestion Phillida saw the abyss
open before her.

A person of Mrs. Frankland's temperament is rarely a good counselor in
practical affairs, but if she had been entirely at herself she would
perhaps have advised with caution, if not with wisdom, in a matter so
vital and delicate. But the exhilaration of oratorical inebriety still
lingered with her, and she heard Phillida professionally rather than
personally. She was hardly conscious, indeed, of the personality of the
suffering soul before her. What she perceived was that here was a new
and beautiful instance of the victory of faith and a consecrated spirit.
In her present state of mind she listened to Phillida's experience with
much the feeling she would have had if some one had brought her a story
of martyrdom in the days of Nero. St. Francis himself was hardly finer
than this, and the glory of this instance was that it was so modern and
withal so romantic in its elements. She exulted in the struggle, without
realizing, as she might have done in a calmer mood, the vast perspective
of present and future sorrow which it presented to Phillida. The
disclosure of Phillida's position opened up not the modicum of practical
wisdom which she possessed but the floodgates of her eloquence.

"You will stand fast, my dear," she said, rising to a sitting posture
and flushing with fresh interest. "You will be firm. You will not shrink
from your duty."

"But what is my duty?" asked Phillida.

"To give the Lord and his work no second place in your affections. He
has honored your faith and works above those of other people. Therefore
stand unfalteringly faithful, my dear Phillida. It is a hard saying,
that of Christ: 'If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his
own life also, he can not be my disciple.' But you are one of those able
to receive the hard words of Christ."

All this was said as it might have been in an address, with little
realization of its application to the individual case before her. Mrs.
F