Alice answered in the words of Christ: "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me."
"Oh, I don't keep his commandments!" said Ellen, the tears running down her cheeks.
"Perfectly, none of us do. But, dear Ellen, that is not the question. Is your heart's desire and effort to keep them? Are you grieved when you fail? There is the point. You cannot love Christ without loving to please him."
Ellen rose, and putting both arms round Alice's neck, laid her head there, as her manner sometimes was, tears flowing fast.
"I sometimes think I do love him a little," she said; "but I do so many wrong things. But he will teach me to love him if I ask him, won't he, dear Alice?"
"Indeed he will, dear Ellen," said Alice, folding her arms round her little adopted sister "indeed he will. He has promised that. Remember what he told somebody who was almost in despair 'Fear not; only believe.' "
Alice's neck was wet with Ellen's tears; and after they had ceased to flow, her arms kept their hold, and her head its resting-place on Alice's shoulder for some time. It was necessary at last for Alice to leave her.
Ellen waited till the sound of her horse's footsteps died away on the road; and then, sinking on her knees beside her rocking-chair, she poured forth her whole heart in prayers and tears. She confessed many a fault and short-coming that none knew but herself; and most earnestly besought help that "her little rushlight might shine bright." Prayer was to little Ellen what it is to all that know it the satisfying of doubt, the soothing of care, the quieting of trouble. She had knelt down very uneasy; but she knew that God has promised to be the hearer of prayer, and she rose up very comforted, her mind fixing on those most sweet words Alice had brought to her memory "Fear not, only believe." When Miss Fortune returned, Ellen was quietly asleep again in her rocking-chair, with a face very pale, but calm as an evening sunbeam.
"Well, I declare if that child ain't sleeping her life away!" said Miss Fortune. "She's slept this whole blessed forenoon; I suppose she'll want to be alive and dancing the whole night, to pay for it."
"I can tell you what she'll want a sight more," said Mr. Van Brunt, who had followed her in it must have been to see about Ellen, for he was never known to do such a thing before or since "I'll tell you what she'll want, and that's a right hot supper. She's ate as nigh as possible nothing at all this noon. There ain't much danger of her dancing a hole in your floor this some time."