been keeping it between God and my own soul. Uncle Robert, is it right to marry a man with anything less than the greatest love?"

She did not know how much of her soul she put unwittingly into her eyes. It was, then, as he had feared. Oh, sad, sad mistake!

"Kathie!"

She buried her face in her hands on his knee.

"I am not going to blame, my child; so let us look at the trouble calmly."

She gave a long sigh, but she was not crying.

"How did you come to find out this mistake?"

"I can't quite tell. I feel now as if I had been trying all the time to fit myself where I did not entirely belong, but where I wanted to belong. And I cannot get in to the very heart of things. It has all been sweet, and tender, and lovely. I think I must be wicked, or hard-hearted, or cold. Do you suppose there ever was any one, a woman I mean, capable of friendship only?"

Her face, as she raised it now, was full of such simple, genuine distress, that, though he bowed to kiss it, he smiled.

"How can she tell if she never compared it with a love?” There was no color, no dropping of the eyes.

"I don't quite understand," she answered slowly. "If everything had been friendship, and they were all alike—" She was innocent then of any double meaning in her soul.

“I am afraid friendship is not quite the foundationstone for marriage, although excellent structures have been reared upon it. I cannot tell why, yet I have felt afraid of this from the very first, that you did not know your own heart sufficiently. You were too young." "Yet, why could I not grow into it? hard. And now what ought I to do?

I have tried, so For the heart I

have taken is all mine. How can I reward it with a half

love? And yet how dare I give it up? Will not the pain of his life be as great a suffering in God's sight as any pain of mine? Ought I not use my utmost endeavor?"

The tears gathered then and beaded her long lashes. "My dear," he said gently, "go over it from the beginning, the first doubt."

She had not been much given to introspection. He could see the surprise to herself when the truth had dawned upon her slowly, at no precise epoch, but made itself manifest at length. The tender conscience had striven up to every point of duty. There has been no going after forbidden gods. And, though there was sorrow and penitence, there was no shame.

"It is because I know what it will be to him," she cried, with remorseful tenderness. "He loves me so! He would take the half-love and be content, trusting for it to grow and blossom. How can I make myself fit and worthy? What must I do?"

He knew how reso

She asked it in all earnestness. lutely she would go at her task if he decided it was her duty, but she could do no more than she had already done out of her pure heart. It was a sad mistake for both. He seemed almost unable to counsel

"There is only one thing," he said presently; "waiting. Some light may come. But it would be a sin to marry this way, unless it were an expiation. If you had tried for this love, if you had detached it from some other joy it might have had, you would owe it a solemn duty. Such debts have been paid, and the soul has come to a higher living through sacrifice. But I cannot see that this would be your duty."

She was weeping softly now. people had made with their lives!

What havoc these young

But he comforted her and bade her be patient with what was to come. The way would be made plain.

Charlie Darrell waited as well. If this would bring her

nearer; if the outgrowth of it all could be such love as a man had a right to expect! But her answer, touching and tender as it was, gave him no thread for a nearer hope.

What if it was a greater thing than a love to hold for his own comforting and delight, a love to give away some time?

He said at first, as youth is prone to cry out in the darkness and sense of bitter loss, that he could not, that God would not have placed this lovely blossom in his garden only to be transplanted. Some other thing, some other cross to bear; another duty to test his ready obedience, not the sacrifice of the first dear object.

Tender, sym

But she gave no sign of drawing nearer. pathetic, interested, saying so many comforting things to make up for the loss of the one thing she could not say in highest truth to herself. He read through the lines as well, missing keenly what was not there.

CHAPTER XXV.

"ROBERT," Mrs. Conover said one evening, as she sat sewing some dainty trifle for baby Bertie, who had come to be a great favorite with her grandmother, "have you any idea that matters are not quite as they should be between Charlie and Kathie?"

Mr. Conover glanced up from his book, then down again, rather perplexed for an answer.

"I fancy something is wrong. Kathie will not talk about it, but seems to evade it at every turn. I think," in a slightly wounded tone, "I am entitled to my child's confidence in this matter. Has she said anything to you?"

"We discussed a few points of duty, one morning," in a slow tone. It was a delicate matter. He could see just the lack of fine agreement on which Kathie and her mother would miss.

"She has grown so so different; I should say grave, only she is bright and interested in all other matters. Yet a young girl's marriage one would think might be a great event to her, touching, as it does, all the deep chords of the soul."

"It will be to her."

He was thinking how he could smooth the way for his darling, for he could foresee there would be rough places. "Has it been put off for any cause?

"I do not know, Dora, that they have come near the real thing, the marriage."

"But Charlie is settled, as one may say. And he could have been before if Kathie had cared."

It must come some time The mother would be sadly hurt, angered, perhaps. Since the engagement, and the coming of baby Bertie, she had held her own child with a loose clasp, so to speak, ready to transfer her rights to another, the other she loved so well.

"I believe the young people have made a mistake, and time only can right it. I was a little afraid from the beginning."

"The engagement is not broken? Mrs. Alston let her work fall, and her hands held themselves nerveless, while varied expressions seemed to flash over her face.

"The engagement stands just as it did, for aught I know. But it seems to me Kathie is coming no nearer the vital joy and anticipation. I doubt if she is as near as on that first night. I suppose the question with her, with any thoughtful person, would be whether this is the love with which to prove a lifetime, to make the sum of all joys come right."

"You never did cordially like it, Robert, and you will encourage her to give it up. Why, I wonder?" And the tears stood in Mrs. Alston's eyes.

"My dear Dora, you are mistaken in some points. I was surprised, and a little afraid that it might be nearness, the tender feeling of the boy and girl who had always been friends, and whose hopes, beliefs, and aims were much alike. I think she could choose no better man if she searched the world over. And if it had gone on to com

plete fruition

"You don't think the winter with Aunt Ruth, with Bruce, changed anything?" she interrupted.

"I do not think it consciously changed anything. I do not believe Kathie has any thought of Bruce in her heart that she could not show the whole world, and if Bruce cared deeply he kept his feelings well under control. Besides, he grew very fond of Charlie; but we will let all that alone. The only point to be considered is, whether