captain, and well-to-do, and
lives in a little out-of-the-way place in Maine. A month ago I received
a letter from Frank and an urgent invitation to visit him, and I've
promised to do so."

"That's nice," said Liddy regretfully, "to be told I am to be left alone
all summer! The next time you ask me up here I shall say: 'Tell me the
bad news first!'"

"Liddy," he replied seriously, "it's not for a pleasure trip that I am
going. He knows how I am situated and a good deal about my hopes and
plans, and he has promised to help me."

She was silent, for this opened a new field of conjecture and for a long
time she mused upon it, and at last said:

"I do not see how his assistance will help matters much, do you?"

"No, to be candid," he replied, "I do not yet; still it may. I am almost
sorry I promised to go, but my friend will feel hurt now if I don't. I
may obtain a few suggestions that will help me to solve this problem."

She made no reply, for the situation seemed as complex to her as to her
suitor. She respected the pride that had made him refuse her father's
generous offer, and at the same time she felt herself tortured by
conflicting emotions. To desert her father she could not, and to deny
her lover his right to herself as a wife was almost as impossible. A
long wait seemed the only solution, unless he would accept her father's
offer.

Perhaps the same conclusions were reached by Manson, for he said at
last: "Do not blame me for going away or looking about to find some way
out of this dilemma. I shall never find one here in Southton. The world
is wide, and I do not feel it half so hard to face as rebel bullets.
There is room for me in it, and a chance to win a home for you and me,
and I am going to fight for that chance. I am too proud to accept your
father's farm as a gift, and you are too proud to have me work for him,
even if he gave me all the farm produced. Then you can't leave him, and
I won't ask you to do so. The only way is to wait and work, and work
hard for the girl I love, and her father will be as welcome in that home
as she."

He paused, and a look of admiration for his spirited words came into her
face.

"Charlie," she said in a low voice, "please don't think I am proud or
stubborn. I can't leave father, but I will wait for you as long as you
wish or I will marry you when you wish, provided, of course, you give me
time to get ready. Only do not feel that I will let pride separate us
for long