ught of resistance to her father's will never crossed her mind.
It was fixed that she must renounce all intercourse with Richard Hilton;
it was even sternly forbidden her to see him again during the few hours
he remained in the house; but the sacred love, thus rudely dragged to
the light and outraged, was still her own. She would take it back into
the keeping of her heart, and if a day should ever come when he would be
free to return and demand it of her, he would find it there, unwithered,
with all the unbreathed perfume hoarded in its folded leaves. If
that day came not, she would at the last give it back to God, saying,
"Father, here is Thy most precious gift, bestow it as Thou wilt."

As her life had never before been agitated by any strong emotion, so it
was not outwardly agitated now. The placid waters of her soul did not
heave and toss before those winds of passion and sorrow: they lay in
dull, leaden calm, under a cold and sunless sky. What struggles
with herself she underwent no one ever knew. After Richard Hilton's
departure, she never mentioned his name, or referred, in any way, to the
summer's companionship with him. She performed her household duties, if
not cheerfully, at least as punctually and carefully as before; and her
father congratulated himself that the unfortunate attachment had struck
no deeper root. Abigail's finer sight, however, was not deceived by this
external resignation. She noted the faint shadows under the eyes, the
increased whiteness of the temples, the unconscious traces of pain which
sometimes played about the dimpled corners of the mouth, and watched her
daughter with a silent, tender solicitude.

The wedding of Moses was a severe test of Asenath's strength, but
she stood the trial nobly, performing all the duties required by her
position with such sweet composure that many of the older female Friends
remarked to Abigail, "How womanly Asenath has grown!" Eli Mitchenor
noted, with peculiar satisfaction, that the eyes of the young
Friends--some of them of great promise in the sect, and well endowed
with worldly goods--followed her admiringly.

"It will not be long," he thought, "before she is consoled."

Fortune seemed to favor his plans, and justify his harsh treatment
of Richard Hilton. There were unfavorable accounts of the young man's
conduct. His father had died during the winter, and he was represented
as having become very reckless and dissipated. These reports at last
assum