ering not a syllable.

"I knew you did _not_ know. You did not think of it so. Yet it is true,
none the less. Faith! Are you happy? Are you satisfied?"

Still a silence, and tears gathering in the eyes.

"I do not wish to distress you, my dear. It is only a little word I
should like to hear you speak. I must, so far as I can, see that my
children are happy, Faith."

"I suppose," said Faith, tremulously, struggling to speech--"one cannot
expect to be utterly happy in this world."

"One does expect it, forgetting all else, at the moment when is given
what seems to one life's first, great good--the earthly good that comes
but once. I remember my own youth, Faithie. Pure, present content is
seldom overwise."

"Only," said Faith, still tremblingly, "that the responsibility comes
with the good. That feeling of having one's hand upon the mainspring is
a fearful one."

"I am not given," said Mr. Rushleigh, "to quoting Bible at all times;
but you make a line of it come up to me. 'There is no fear in love.
Perfect love casteth out fear.'"

"Be sure of yourself, dear child. Be sure you are content and happy; and
tell me so, if you can; or, tell me otherwise, if you must, without a
reserve or misgiving," he said again, as they drove down the mill
entrance; and their conversation, for the time, came, necessarily, to an
end.

Coming into the mill yard, they were aware of a little commotion about
one of the side doors.

The mill girl who had fainted sat here, surrounded by two or three of
her companions, slowly recovering.

"It is Mary Grover, sir, from up at the Peak," said one of them, in
reply to Mr. Rushleigh's question. "She hasn't been well for some days,
but she's kept on at her work, and the heat, to-day, was too much for
her. She'd ought to be got home, if there was any way. She can't ever
walk."

"I'll take her, myself," said the mill owner, promptly. "Keep her quiet
here a minute or two, while I go in and speak to Blasland."

But first he turned to Faith again. "What shall I do with you, my
child?"

"Dear Mr. Rushleigh," said she, with all her gratitude for his just
spoken kindness to herself and her appreciation of his ready sympathy
for the poor workgirl, in her voice--"don't think of me! It's lovely out
there over the footbridge, and in the fields; and that way, the
distance is nearly nothing to Aunt Faith's. I should like the
walk--really."

"Thank you," said Mr. Rushleigh. "I believe you would. The