erly love when first he began to visit her sister. She
had that answer of his to remember for many a long day, and to live upon,
when questionings and loneliness came upon her. But she raised her face to
her father now, and said: "I will go, father!"

The Squire stooped and kissed his little girl for the last time. Perhaps
he realized that from this time forth she would be a little girl no
longer, and that he would never look into those child-eyes of hers again,
unclouded with the sorrows of life, and filled only with the
wonder-pictures of a rosy future. She seemed to him and to herself to be
renouncing her own life forever, and to be taking up one of sacrificial
penitence for her sister's wrong doing.

The father then took Marcia's hand and placed it in David's, and the
betrothal was complete.

Madam Schuyler, whose reign for the time was set aside, stood silent, half
disapproving, yet not interfering. Her conscience told her that this
wholesale disposal of Marcia was against nature. The new arrangement was a
relief to her in many ways, and would make the solution of the day less
trying for every one. But she was a woman and knew a woman's heart. Marcia
was not having her chance in life as her sister had had, as every woman
had a right to have. Then her face hardened. How had Kate used her
chances? Perhaps it was better for Marcia to be well placed in life before
she grew headstrong enough to make a fool of herself as Kate had done.
David would be good to her, that was certain. One could not look at the
strong, pleasant lines of his well cut mouth and chin and not be sure of
that. Perhaps it was all for the best. At least it was not her doing. And
it was only the night before that she had been looking at Marcia and
worrying because she was growing into a woman so fast. Now she would be
relieved of that care, and could take her ease and enjoy life until her
own children were grown up. But the voice of her husband aroused her to
the present.

"Let the wedding go on as planned, Sarah, and no one need know until the
ceremony is over except the minister. I myself will go and tell the
minister. There will need to be but a change of names."

"But," said the Madam, with housewifely alarm, as the suddenness of the
whole thing flashed over her, "Marcia is not ready. She has no suitable
clothes for her wedding."

"Not ready! No clothes!" said the Squire, now thoroughly irritated over
this trivial objection, as a fly will s