both young, Louis."

"Yes, sir, I know it, and I do not ask to make her my wife now. But I
love her, Mr. Minot, and it is not right we should hold a position not
sanctioned by you. I shall feel better if you are willing to consider
us, as we feel, pledged to each other."

"I cannot say _no_, but I have thought--Mr. Benton has asked me the same
question, and I hardly know what to say--I said to him, 'If Emily is
willing, I will not oppose your suit.'"

"Oh!" I cried, "father, he has told such stories!"

Louis said: "We can explain that satisfactorily, Mr. Minot, but if there
are other objections in your mind, let us know what they are."

My father was not a man who expressed himself freely, and Louis was so
unlike other young men that he was embarrassed evidently, and there was,
as it seemed to me, a long silence ere he said:

"I have no objections, Louis. I believe you mean what you say, and also
have enough of your mother in you to treat our girl well. I cannot see
why your plans may not be carried out so far as I am concerned."

He looked at mother, who smiled a consent, and Louis stepped toward them
both, shook their hands heartily, and said:

"I thank you."

His way of manifesting feeling was purely French, and belonged to
him--it was not ours, but we came to like it, and as my father often
said, when Clara came she unlocked many a door that had been shut for
years. Too many of our best ideas were kept under covering, I knew, and
the hand of expressive thought was one which loosened the soil about
their roots, giving impetus to their growth and sweetness to their
blossoms. We knew more of each other daily, and is not this true through
life? Do not fathers and mothers live and die without knowing their
children truly, and all of them looking through the years for that which
they sorely need, and find it not? Their confidence in each other
lacking, lives have been blasted, hopes scattered almost ere they were
born, and generations suffered in consequence. It was the blessed
breaking of day to me, the freedom to tell my mother what I thought; and
after Clara, became one of us, I could get much nearer to my father. The
full tide of her feeling swept daily over the harbor bar of our lives,
and we enjoyed together its great power. Her heart was beneficent, and
her hand sealed it with the alms she gave freely. She was always
unobtrusive, and anxious in every way to avoid notoriety.

Deacon Grover who had heard