ard you say to Mark, 'Friendship is the best college
character can graduate from. Believe in it, seek for it, and when it
comes keep it as sacredly as love.' All my life I have wanted a friend,
have looked for one, and when he came I welcomed him. May I not keep
him, and preserve the friendship dear and sacred still, although I
cannot offer love?"

Softly, seriously, she spoke, but the words sounded cold to him;
friendship seemed so poor now, love so rich, he could not leave the
blessed sunshine which transfigured the whole earth and sit down in the
little circle of a kindly fire without keen regret.

"I should say yes, I will try to do it if nothing easier remains to me.
Sylvia, for five years I have longed and waited for a home. Duty forbade
it then, because poor Marion had only me to make her sad life happy, and
my mother left her to my charge. Now the duty is ended, the old house
very empty, my heart very hungry for affection. You are all in all to
me, and I find it so difficult to relinquish my dream that I must be
importunate. I have spoken too soon, you have had no time to think, to
look into yourself and question your own heart. Go, now, recall what I
have said, remember that I will wait for you patiently, and when I
leave, an hour hence, come down and give me my last answer."

Sylvia was about to speak, but the sound of an approaching step brought
over her the shyness she had not felt before, and without a word she
darted from the room. Then romance also fled, for Prue came bustling in,
and Moor was called to talk of influenzas, while his thoughts were full
of love.

Alone in her chamber Sylvia searched herself. She pictured the life that
would be hers with Moor. The old house so full of something better than
its opulence, an atmosphere of genial tranquillity which made it
home-like to whoever crossed its threshold. Herself the daily companion
and dear wife of the master who diffused such sunshine there; whose
serenity soothed her restlessness; whose affection would be as enduring
as his patience; whose character she so truly honored. She felt that no
woman need ask a happier home, a truer or more tender lover. But when
she looked into herself she found the cordial, unimpassioned sentiment
he first inspired still unchanged, and her heart answered--

"This is friendship."

She thought of Warwick, and the other home that might be hers. Fancy
painted in glowing colors the stirring life, the novelty, exciteme