ristian.
I'm not sure but he is the first minister that I have ever come close to
who has impressed me as believing what he preaches, and living it. I
suppose there are others. I haven't known many. That man West that was
here when you came was a mistake!"

"He didn't even preach much," smiled Margaret, "so how could he live it?
This man is real. And there are others. Oh, I have known a lot of them
that are living lives of sacrifice and loving service and are yet just
as strong and happy and delightful as if they were millionaires. But
they are the men who have not thrown away their Bibles and their Christ.
They believe every promise in God's word, and rest on them day by day,
testing them and proving them over and over. I wish you knew my father!"

"I am going to," said Gardley, proudly. "_I_ am going to him just as
soon as I have finished my business and straightened out my affairs;
and I am going to tell him _everything_--with your permission,
Margaret!"

"Oh, how beautiful!" cried Margaret, with happy tears in her eyes. "To
think you are going to see father and mother. I have wanted them to know
the real you. I couldn't half _tell_ you, the real you, in a letter!"

"Perhaps they won't look on me with your sweet blindness, dear," he
said, smiling tenderly down on her. "Perhaps they will see only my dark,
past life--for I mean to tell your father everything. I'm not going to
have any skeletons in the closet to cause pain hereafter. Perhaps your
father and mother will not feel like giving their daughter to me after
they know. Remember, I realize just what a rare prize she is."

"No, father is not like that, Lance," said Margaret, with her rare smile
lighting up her happy eyes. "Father and mother will understand."

"But if they should not?" There was the shadow of sadness in Gardley's
eyes as he asked the question.

"I belong to you, dear, anyway," she said, with sweet surrender. "I
trust you though the whole world were against you!"

For answer Gardley took her in his arms, a look of awe upon his face,
and, stooping, laid his lips upon hers in tender reverence.

"Margaret--you wonderful Margaret!" he said. "God has blessed me more
than other men in sending you to me! With His help I will be worthy of
you!"

Three days more and Margaret was alone with her school work, her two
missionary friends thirty miles away, her eager watching for the mail
to come, her faithful attendant Bud, and for comfort the purple m