, where
thou canst not breathe, and when thou seest no escape, and when thou
criest and shoutest, He shutteth out thy prayer: when thine heaven above
thee is as brass, and thine earth below thee iron: when it seems as if
no God were, either to hear thee or to do for thee--that is a deep pit
to get in, _Helen_, and not a pleasant one."

"Aunt _Joyce_! can such a feeling be--at the least to one that feareth
God?"

"Ay, it can, _Nelly_!" saith Aunt _Joyce_, solemnly, yet with much
tenderness. "And when thou comest into such a slough as that, may God
have mercy upon thee!"

And methought, looking in Aunt _Joyce's_ eyes, that at some past time of
her life she had been in right such an one.

"It sounds awful!" saith _Milisent_, under her breath.

"It may be," saith Aunt _Joyce_, looking from the window, and after a
fashion as though she spake to herself rather than to us, "that there be
some souls whom the Lord suffers not to pass through such quagmires.
May-be He only leads the strongest souls into the deepest places. I say
not that there be not deeps beyond any I know. Yet I know of sloughs
wherein I had been lost and smothered, had He not held mine hand tight,
and watched that the dark waters washed not over mine head too far for
life. That word, `the fellowship of His passions,' hath a long tether.
For He went down to Hell."

"But, _Aunt_, would you say that meant the place of lost souls?" saith
_Helen_.

"I am wholesomely 'feared of laying down the law, _Nell_," saith Aunt
_Joyce_, "touching such matters as I can but see through a glass darkly.
What He means, He knoweth. But the place of departed spirits can it
scarce fail to be."

"Aunt _Joyce_," saith _Helen_, laying down her work, "I trust it is not
ill in me to say thus, but in very deed I do alway feel 'feared of what
shall be after death. If we might but know where we shall be, and with
whom, and what we shall have to do--it all looks so dark!"

"Had it been good for us, we should have known," saith Aunt _Joyce_.
"And two points we do know. `With _Christ_,' and `far better.' Is that
not enough for those that are His friends?"

"`If it were not so, I would have told you,'" saith my Lady _Stafford_.

"But not _how_, Madam, an' it please you?" asks _Helen_.

"If there were not room; if there were not happiness."

"I take it," saith Aunt _Joyce_, "if there were not all that for which
my nature doth crave. But, mark you, my renewed nature."

"