. He wanted to do
something for justice, truth, and liberty; to stand resolutely with
those who were ready to make sacrifices for their fellow-men. What a
sentence was this: "I want to be better than I am; I want to do
something to make the world better than it is; and you are pointing
the way."

Ever as she read the words her eyes had filled with tears. She
pointing the way! Those words in one end of the scale, and Halford
Castle and everything connected with it in the other, and the writing
tipped the beam.

The night was sultry; her pulses bounding; her brow hot with fever.
She sat by the window to breathe the pure air. The stars were shining
in their ethereal brightness; the dipper was wheeling around the polar
star; the great white river, the milky way, was illumining the arch of
heaven. She thought of Him who created the gleaming worlds. Beneath
her window the fireflies were lighting their lamps, and living their
little lives. She could hear the swallows crooning in their nests
beneath the eaves.

"He made them; He cares for them; He will care for me," she said to
herself. The night air cooled her brow, a holy peace and calm came to
her troubled heart. Kneeling, she repeated as her prayer the psalm
which the rector had read on Sunday.

"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge, and my strength.
My God, in Him will I trust."

In white garments, without adornment, Ruth Newville courtesied to Lord
Upperton the following evening as he entered the parlor. Never before
had she seemed to him, or to her father and mother, so beautiful, so
sweet, and pure.

"Miss Newville," he said, "I take it for granted that you have been
duly informed of the purpose of my visit this evening."

"I have, my lord."

"I come to offer you my hand and heart. I have been charmed by your
qualities of character and your beauty, and I fain would make you
mistress of Halford Castle. I am soon to return to England, and I
desire to take you with me as my bride. I have received the gracious
permission of your honored parents to begin my suit, and I fondly hope
that I may receive an affirmative answer from your lips."

"My lord, I am not insensible of the honor you confer upon me, but I
am not worthy of it. I am an obscure girl. I am not fitted to fill the
exalted station in which you desire to place me."

"Pardon me, M