The Old Helmet, Volume I

"You want my armour," said her companion. The tone of voice was not only grave but sympathising. Eleanor looked up at him.

"Your armour?"

"You charged me with wearing armour--and I confessed it," he said with something of a smile. "It is a sort of armour that makes people safe in all circumstances."

He looked so quiet, so grave, so cool, and his eye had such a light in it, that Eleanor could not throw off his words. He looked like a man in armour. But no mail of brass was to be seen.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"Did you never hear of the helmet of salvation?"

"I don't know," said Eleanor wonderingly. "I think I have heard the words. I do not think I ever attached any meaning to them."

"Did you never feel," he said, speaking with a peculiar deliberation of manner, "that you were exposed to danger--and to death--from which no effort of yours could free you; and that after death, there is a