herefore it will not come so hard to
her, and though children do not forget, the sorrow
softens and has a tender vagueness from the hand
of time.

"So I give my little girl to you. If so be you
should marry and have children of your own, she
will not be crowded out, I know. In the course of
years,--for girls grow rapidly up to
womanhood,--she may love and marry. Direct her a
little here and see that no one takes her for the
mere money. I want her to know the sweetness and
richness of a true satisfying love."

All important papers, and a sort of diary Anthony Leverett had kept,
were to come in the vessel that would bring the little girl in the
charge of Captain Corwin.

Chilian Leverett sat for a long while with the letter in his hand, until
the log broke in the middle and one end fell over the andiron. Then he
started suddenly.

Had he been dreaming of the sweetness of the woman who had so captivated
his youthful fancy, almost a dozen years agone? He never thought she had
led him astray, and had no blame for her. Perhaps the love for her
betrothed had so permeated her whole being that she shed an exquisitely
fascinating sweetness all about. He was to her as if he had been her
betrothed's younger brother. And when the engagement was confessed he
allowed himself no reprehensible longing for the woman so soon to be
another's. All his instincts were pure and high, perhaps rather too
idealized, though there was much strength and heroism in the old Puritan
blood. Right was right in those days. Lines were sharply drawn among
those of the old stock.

But there had been years of what one might call living for self,
indulgence in studious habits and tastes and the higher intellectual
life, much solitary dreaming, although he was by no means a recluse. And
to have a little girl come into his life! He would have liked a boy
better, he thought. The boy would be out of doors, playing with mates.
And now he bethought himself how few small children there were in his
branch of the Leverett line. Some of the men and women had not married.
His brother and one sister had died in childhood. The first cousins were
nearly all older than he, many of them had dropped out of life. A little
girl! No chance to decline the trust--well, he would hardly have done
that. He knew Anthony Leverett had counted on a serene old age in his
na