ten," said Eleanor, holding her hands fast. "It is not that I am
good. It is that I love Jesus and he helps me. I cannot do anything of
myself--I cannot give up anything--but I trust in my Lord and he does
it for me. It is he that does all in me that you would call good."

"Ah, but you love him."

"Should I not?" said Eleanor, "when he loved me, and gave himself for
me, that he might bring me from myself and sin to know him and be
happy."

"And you are happy, are you not?" said Mrs. Esthwaite, looking at her
as if it were something that she had come to believe against evidence.
There was good evidence for it now, in Eleanor's smile; which would
bear studying.

"There is nothing but happiness where Christ is."

"But I couldn't understand it--those places where you are going are so
dreadful;--and why you should go there at all--"

"No, you do not understand, and cannot till you try it. I have such joy
in the love of Christ sometimes, that I wish for nothing so much in the
world, as to bring others to know what I know!"

There was power in the lighting face, which Mrs. Esthwaite gazed at and
wondered.

"I think I am willing to go anywhere and do anything, which my King may
give me, in that service."

"To be sure," said Mrs. Esthwaite, as if adding a convincing corollary
from her own mind,--"you have some other reason to wish to get
there--to the Islands, I mean."

That brought a flood of crimson over Eleanor's face; she let go her
hostess's hands and turned away.

"But there was something else I wanted to ask," said Mrs. Esthwaite
hastily. "Egbert said--Are you very tired, my dear?"

"Not at all, I assure you."

"Egbert said there was some most beautiful singing as he came up
alongside the ship to-day--was it you?"

"In part it was I."

"He said it was hymns. Won't you sing me one?"

Eleanor liked it very well; it suited her better than talking. They sat
down together, and Eleanor sang:

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

And somewhat to her surprise, before the hymn had gone far, her
companion was weeping; and kept her face hidden in her handkerchief
till the last words were sung.

"'Come then to this physician;
His help he'll freely give.
He asks no hard condition,--
'Tis only, look, and live.
For there's balm in Gilead,
To make the wounded whole.
There's power enough in Jesus
To save