"Where are you going to now, Eunice?" he
demanded.

It seemed a pleasanter greeting than if he had
called me Miss. I told him I knew my way to
the jail, for that I had been not long ago to look
at the outside of it. I saw the tears stand in his
eyes, but, without speaking, he drew my hand
through his arm, and I silently, but with a very
lightened heart, walked beside him to the great
portal of my father's prison.

We entered a square court, with nothing to
be seen save the grey winter sky lying, as it
were flat, overhead; and there was my father,
pacing to and fro, with his arms crossed upon
his breast and his head bowed down, as if it
would never be raised again. I cried aloud, and
ran and fell on his neck, and knew nothing more
until I opened my eyes in a small bare room, and
felt my father holding me in his arms, and Gabriel
kneeling before me, chafing my hands, and
pressing his lips upon them.

Afterwards Gabriel and my father conferred
together; but before long Brother More arrived,
whereupon Gabriel departed. Brother More
said, solemnly:

"That man is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and
our Eunice is a tender lamb."

I cannot believe that Gabriel is a wolf.

Dec. 2. I have taken a room in a cottage near
the jail, the abode of John Robins and his wife,
a decent tidy woman. So I can spend every day
with my father.

Dec. 13. My father has been in prison a whole
fortnight. Brother More went over to see Priscilla
last night, and this morning he is to lay
before us his plan for my father's release. I am
going to meet him at the jail.

When I entered the room, my father and
Brother More looked greatly perturbed, and my
poor father leaned back in his chair, as if
exhausted after a long conflict.

"Speak to her, brother," he said.

Then Brother More told us of a heavenly vision
which had appeared to him, directing him to break
off his betrothal to Priscilla, and to take me—
me!—for his wife. After which he awoke, and
these words abode in his mind, "The dream is
certain, and the interpretation thereof sure."

"Therefore, Eunice," he said, in an awful
voice, "do you and Priscilla see to it, lest you
should be found fighting against the Lord."

I was struck dumb as with a great shock, but
I heard him add these words:

"I was also instructed in the vision, to set
your father free, upon the day that you become
my wife."

"But," I said at last, my whole heart recoiling
from him, "this would be a shameful wrong to
Priscilla. It cannot be a vision from Heaven, but
a delusion and snare. Marry Priscilla, and set my
father free? Surely, surely, it was a lying vision."

"No," he said, fastening his gaze upon me;
"I chose Priscilla rashly of my own judgment.
Therein I erred; but I have promised her half
her dowry as a compensation for my error."

"Father," I cried, "surely I ought to have
some direction also, as well as he. Why should
only he have a vision?" Then I added that I
would go home and see Priscilla, and seek a
sign for my own guidance.

December 14. Priscilla was ill in bed when I
reached home, and refused to see me. I arose at
five o'clock this morning, and stole down into the
parlour. As I lighted the lamp, the parlour looked
forlorn and deserted, and yet there lingered about
it a ghostly feeling, as if perhaps my mother, and
the dead children whom I never saw, had been
sitting on the hearth in the night, as we sat in the
daytime. Maybe she knew of my distress, and
had left some tokens for my comfort and counsel.
My Bible lay upon the table, but it was closed;
her angel fingers had not opened it upon any
verse that might have guided me. There was no
mode of seeking direction, save by casting of
lots.

I cut three little slips of paper of one length,
and exactly similar—three, though surely I only
needed two. Upon the first I wrote, "To be
Brother More's wife," and upon the second, "To
be a Single Sister." The third lay upon the desk,
blank and white, as if waiting for some name to
be written upon it, and suddenly all the chilly
cold of the winter morning passed into a sultry
heat, until I threw open the casement, and let
the frosty air breathe upon my face. I said in
my own heart I would leave myself a chance,
though my conscience smote me for that word
"chance." So I laid the three slips of paper
between the leaves of my Bible, and sat down
opposite to them, afraid of drawing the lot which
held the secret of my future life.

There was no mark to guide me in the choice
of one slip of paper from another; and I dared
not stretch out my hand to draw one of them. For
I was bound to abide by the solemn decision. It
seemed too horrible to become Brother More's
wife; and to me the Sisters' Home, where the
Single Sisters dwell, having all things in common,
seems dreary and monotonous and somewhat
desolate. But if I should draw the blank
paper! My heart fluttered; again and again
I stretched out my hand, and withdrew it;
until at last the oil in the lamp being spent, its
light grew dimmer and dimmer, and, fearful of
being still longer without guidance, I snatched
the middle lot from between the leaves of my
Bible. There was only a glimmer of dying light,
by which I read the words, "To be Brother
More's wife."

That is the last entry in my journal, written
three years ago.

When Susannah came down stairs and entered
the parlour, she found me sitting before my desk,
almost in an idiotic state, with that miserable lot
in my hand. There was no need to explain it to
her; she looked at the other slip of paper, one
blank, and the other inscribed, "To be a Single
Sister," and she knew I had been casting lots.
I remember her crying over me a little, and
kissing me with unaccustomed tenderness; and