"Do you not feel so?" Eleanor asked.
"O no. I do not know anything about it. I am not good—like you."
"It is not goodness—not my goodness—that makes heaven my home," said
Eleanor smiling at her and taking her hands.
"But I am sure you are good?" said Mrs. Esthwaite earnestly.
"Just as you are,—except for the grace of God, which is free to all."
"But," said Mrs. Esthwaite looking at her as if she were something hardly of earth like ordinary mortals,—"I have not given up the world as you have. I cannot. I like it too well."
"I have not given it up either," said Eleanor smiling again; "not in the sense you mean. I have not given up anything but sin. I enjoy everything else in the world as much as you do."
"What do you mean?" said Mrs. Esthwaite, much bewildered.
"Only this," said Eleanor, with very sweet gravity now. "I do not love anything that my King hates. All that I have given up, and all that leads to it; but I am all the more free to enjoy everything that is really worth enjoying, quite as well as you can, or any body else."
"But—you do not go to parties and dances, and you do not drink wine, and the theatre, and all that sort of thing; do you?"