r. Sheldon how
grateful she was to him for the liberality of mind which had
distinguished his conduct in this affair.

"I really ought to thank him," she said to herself more than once. "I
was quite prepared for his doing his uttermost to prevent my marriage
with Valentine; and instead of that, he volunteers his consent, and
even promises to give us a fortune. 'I am bound to thank him for such
generous kindness."

Perhaps there is no task more difficult than to offer grateful tribute
to a person whom one has been apt to think of with a feeling very near
akin to dislike. Ever since her mother's second marriage Charlotte had
striven against an instinctive distaste for Mr. Sheldon's society, and
an innate distrust of Mr. Sheldon's affectionate regard for herself;
but now that he had proved his sincerity in this most important crisis
of her life, she awoke all at once to the sense of the wrong she had
done.

"I am always reading the Sermon on the Mount, and yet in my thoughts
about Mr. Sheldon I have never been able to remember those words,
'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' His kindness touches me to the very
heart, and I feel it all the more keenly because of my injustice."

She followed her stepfather into the prim little study. There was no
fire, and the room was colder than a vault on this bleak December day.
Charlotte shivered, and drew her jacket more tightly across her chest
as she perched herself on one of Mr. Sheldon's shining red morocco
chairs. "The room strikes cold," she said; "very, very cold."

After this there was a brief pause, during which Mr. Sheldon took some
papers from the pocket of his overcoat, and arranged them on his desk
with an absent manner, as if he were rather deliberating upon what he
was going to say than thinking of what he was doing. While he loitered
thus Charlotte found courage to speak.

"I wish to thank you, Mr. Sheldon--papa," she said, pronouncing the
"papa" with some slight appearance of effort, in spite of her desire to
be grateful: "I--I have been wishing to thank you for the last day or
two; only it seems so difficult sometimes to express one's self about
these things."

"I do not deserve or wish for your thanks, my dear. I have only done my
duty."

"But, indeed, you do deserve my thanks, and you have them in all
sincerity, papa. You have been very, very good to me--about--about
Valentine. I thought you would be sure to oppose our marriage on the
ground of imprudence