was inclined to
consider his request with some degree of favor. That she had sought
advice from her parents. That in response her father, Fennimore Fenwick,
had expressed himself as convinced of the integrity, honesty, and purity
of Fillmore's love for her; but he could not consent to an engagement
binding his daughter to marriage, until the unqualified success of the
model farm, at the end of the first five years, had demonstrated the
worthiness of Fillmore Flagg. After that event, if both continued to
desire a marriage engagement, his consent might be considered as
assured. Her mother, she said, had repeated and emphasized her father's
advice: this advice she felt in duty bound to heed and respect.
Therefore, on the conditions named, she was willing to accept him as a
lover, with the distinct understanding however, that he must not claim
her hand in marriage until after the achievement of the complete
success of Solaris Farm.

In the postscript at the close of her letter, Fern adroitly, though
perhaps innocently, lighted the torch of hope in the heart of Fillmore
Flagg by archly expressing herself as follows: "Henceforth my personal
interest in the progress and final success of the model farm will, no
doubt, fully equal your own."

This little postscript was a never failing source of comfort and
encouragement to Fillmore Flagg. He read it and re-read it again and
again: in his ecstacy he caught himself kissing it a dozen times the
first week after it reached him. With each reading his hitherto dormant
love nature gathered force and intensity. In the throbbing tide of
joyful emotions, he was suffused with a strange new happiness. He
blushed like a girl as the certainty came home to his heart that at last
his love for this beautiful woman was returned. It may be marked as
noteworthy that this important letter came to Fillmore Flagg just eight
months after his parting with Fern Fenwick at her cottage home on the
Hudson. While meditating and luxuriating under the spell of the happy
significance of this event, as affecting his future life, he thanked his
angel friends for so successfully speeding his wooing. With this
assurance he was confident that at last his star of destiny was dominant
in the sky of love. Calmly serene, he could now await the approach of
whatever trials in life the future might have in store for him. Nothing
could shake him from this fortress of love! Nothing could intervene to
separate his life fro