-"Giles, you
know the world better than I; you know best what may be well for the
boy. I love Adele very much; I do not believe that I should love her any
less if she were the wife of Phil. But you know best, Giles; you must
decide."

"There's a good woman!" said the Squire; and he stayed his pace up and
down the room to lay his hand approvingly upon the head of the old lady,
touching as tenderly those gray locks as ever he had done in earlier
years the ripples of golden brown.

In a few days Phil returns,--blithe, hopeful, winsome as ever. He is
puzzled, however, by the grave manner of the Squire, when he takes him
aside, after the first hearty greetings, and says, "Phil, my lad, how
fares it with the love matter? Have things come to a crisis, eh?"

"What do you mean, father?" and Phil blushes like a boy of ten.

"I mean to ask, Philip," said the old gentleman, measuredly, "if you
have made any positive declaration to Miss Maverick."

"Not yet," said Phil, with a modest frankness.

"Very good, my son, very good. And now, Phil, I would wait a
little,--take time for reflection; don't do anything rashly. It's an
important step to take."

"But, father," says Phil, puzzled by the old gentleman's manner, "what
does this mean?"

"Philip," said the Squire, with a seriousness that seemed almost comical
by its excess, "would you really marry Adele?"

"To-morrow, if I could," said Phil.

"Tut, tut, Phil! It's the old hot blood in him!" (He says this, as if to
himself.) "Philip, I wouldn't do so, my boy."

And thereupon he gives him in his way a story of the revelations of the
last few days.

At the first, Phil is disposed to an indignant denial, as if by no
possibility any indignity could attach to the name or associations of
Adele. But in the whirl of his feeling he remembered that interview with
Reuben, and his boast that Phil could not affront the conventionalities
of the world. It confirmed the truth to him in a moment. Reuben then had
known the whole, and had been disinterestedly generous. Should he be any
less so?

"Well, father," said Phil, after a minute or two of silence, "I don't
think the story changes my mind one whit. I would marry her to-morrow,
if I could," and he looked the Squire fairly and squarely in the face.

"Gad, boy," said the old gentleman, "you must love her as I loved your
mother!"

"I hope I do," said Phil,--"that is if I win her. I don't think she's to
be had for the asking."

"A