r's neck, as the
good-night kiss was taken.

"Decide for your own happiness, Faithie. We have seen and understood for
a long time. If it is to be as we think, nothing could give us a greater
joy for you."

Ah! how much had father and mother seen and understood?

The daughter went her way, to wage her own battle in secret; to balance
and fix her decision between her own heart and God. So we find ourselves
left, at the last, in all the great crises of our life.

Late that night, while Mr. and Mrs. Gartney were felicitating each
other, cheerily, upon the great good that had fallen to the lot of their
cherished child, that child sat by her open window, looking out into the
summer night; the tossing elm boughs whispering weird syllables in her
ears, and the stars looking down upon her soul struggle, so silently,
from so far!

"Mr. Rushleigh's here!" shouted Hendie, precipitating himself, next
morning, into the breakfast room, where, at a rather later hour than
usual, Mrs. Gartney and Faith were washing and wiping the silver and
china, and Mr. Gartney still lingered in his seat, finishing somebody's
long speech, reported in the evening paper of yesterday.

"Mr. Rushleigh's here, on his long-tailed black horse! And he says he'll
give me a ride, but not yet. He wants to see papa. Make haste, papa."

Faith dropped her towel, and as Mr. Gartney rose to go out and meet his
visitor, just whispered, hurriedly, to her mother:

"I'll come down again. I'll see him before he goes." And escaped up the
kitchen staircase to her own room.

Paul Rushleigh came, he told Mr. Gartney, because, although Faith had
not authorized him to appeal to her father to ratify any consent of
hers, he thought it right to let him know what he had already said to
his daughter. He did not wish to hurry Faith. He only wished to stand
openly with Mr. Gartney in the matter, and would wait, then, till she
should be quite ready to give him her own answer.

He explained the prospect his father offered him, and the likelihood of
his making a permanent home at Kinnicutt.

"That is," he added, "if I am to be so happy as to have a home,
anywhere, of my own."

Mr. Gartney was delighted with the young man's unaffected warmth of
heart and noble candor.

"I could not wish better for my daughter, Mr. Rushleigh," he replied.
"And she is a daughter whom I may fairly wish the best for, too."

Mr. Gartney rose. "I will send Faith," said he.

"I do not _ask_ for