lace a home. He loves to think that you
pray for him. He feels that he needs your prayers. Happy are the
fathers who, plunged in earthly cares on sea and land, have children
to fold their hands and lift their hearts in prayer for them. This
is all you can do for your absent father. Though you could give him
crowns and kingdoms, wealth and honor, they would not be worth as
much as one earnest, faithful, importunate prayer in Jesus' name.
That name is all-powerful, and _must prevail_. Your father calls you
his 'little flower.' He wants his little flower to be pure and
modest and simple, like the lily, which all may consider and see in
it the handiwork of God. Only God, who made this beautiful world,
can purify and cleanse our souls and help us to walk in his holy
ways. I know that you have been taught all this by the kind friends
who have watched over you from infancy. Your father wants you to
give good heed to their counsel, and ever watch and pray and
struggle against temptation. No blow could fall on him so sore as to
know his little darling was walking in the wrong path. May you never
so grieve his fond heart. Again I must tell you, though you have
read it in his repeated caresses, how your father loves you. May you
be to him that best of treasures, a prayerful, pious daughter, is
the sincere wish of

"Your father's friend,

"BLAIR ROBERTSON."

Blair folded his letter, and then addressing a few lines to his mother,
he inclosed the two in a single envelope, and sought out Derry for
further directions. Derry was pacing up and down the deck, making the
boards ring with his heavy tread.

"Shall I read you what I have written?" said Blair, laying his hand on
Derry's shoulder.

Derry started as if in a dream; but recollecting himself, he said
quickly, "Yes, yes. Here, here in the moonlight. No one will listen
here."

The light of the full moon fell on the open letter, and Blair read it
without difficulty.

"That's it, that's it. Every word of it true," said Derry in a voice
trembling with feeling. "It would kill me to think of her going wrong.
But she wont. Her way is _up_, and mine is _down, down, down_. Give me
the letter; I'll put the right name on it. You don't mind my seeing what
goes to your mother. That's no more than fair. I tell you I don't like
folks to know where my flower hides. I'll see it into the bag, and mi