"Have you ever heard from him, aunt Caxton."
"Not yet. It is almost time, I think."
"It is almost a year and a half since he went."
"The communication is slow and uncertain," said Mrs. Caxton. "They do not get letters there, often, till they are a year old."
"How impossible it used to be to me," said Eleanor, "to comprehend such a life; how impossible to understand, that anybody should leave home and friends and comfort, and take his place voluntarily in distance and danger and heathendom. It was an utter enigma to me."
"And you understand it now?"
"O yes, aunty," Eleanor went on in the same tone; and she had not ceased gazing into the coals;—"I see that Christ is all; and with him one is never alone, and under his hand one can never be in danger. I know now how his love keeps one even from fear."
"You are no coward naturally."
"No, aunt Caxton—not about ordinary things, except when conscience made me so, some time ago."
"That is over now?"