moments in the apartment, by an observation on the service they had both
that day attended.

"Accustomed, as you are, to city churches and city congregations, it
could scarcely be expected that our unpretending house of prayer, with
its humble worshippers, could have found much favor in your eyes, Miss
Wiltshire?"

"And yet, strange to say," exclaimed Agnes, lifting her fine dark eyes
to Mrs. Gordon's sweet, though pensive face, "that unpretending church,
those earnest worshippers, and, above all, that simple, faithful
discourse, affected me far more deeply than any heard from the lips of
the most eloquent divine, in a gorgeous edifice crowded with the =elite=
of the city, and where the solemn notes of the full-toned organ ought,
perhaps, to have filled the soul with sacred and heavenly thoughts.
Those words, so thrillingly pronounced, shall I ever forget them? 'To
whom much is given, of him shall much be required.' They seem still to
ring in my ears, for I, alas, am among those who have received much, yet
rendered back nothing."

The speaker paused, overcome with emotion, but the countenance of the
listener grew radiant with delight,--not that delight which arises from
the realization of some worldly hope, but, rather, a heavenly joy, which
lent to the pale and pensive face a beauty not of this world; it beamed
in the sunken, yet soft blue eye, and flushed the hollow cheek; it was
the joy of a saint, nay, it was the joy of an angel, at the return of
the stray sheep to its Father's fold. But it soon found expression in
words.

"I cannot tell you how happy you make me, in speaking thus, dear Agnes,"