ty, I had never the
worthiness to fill, that I have no words to thank you. And now you have
crowned all by giving her that serene trust"----

"Not I! not I!" says the Doctor to himself,--"only God's mercy,--God's
infinite mercy!"--and he continues, "that serene trust in Heaven which
will support her under all trials. Poor child, she will need it all!"

"And that this man," pursues the Doctor meditatively, "who thinks so
wisely, should be given over still to the things of this world!"

"I hear still further,--from what sources it will be unnecessary for me
now to explain,--that a close intimacy has grown up latterly between
your son Reuben and my dear Adele, and that this intimacy has provoked
village rumors of the possibility of some nearer tie. These rumors may
be, perhaps, wholly untrue; I hope to Heaven they are, and my informant
may have exaggerated only chance reports. But the knowledge of them,
vague as they are, has stimulated me to a task which I ought far sooner
to have accomplished, and which, as a man of honor, I can no longer
defer. I know that you think lightly of any promptings to duty which
spring only from a sense of honor; and before you shall have finished my
letter I fear that you will be tempted to deny me any claim to the
title. Indeed, it has been the fear of forfeiting altogether your regard
that has kept me thus far silent, and has caused me to delay, from year
to year, that full explanation which I can no longer with any propriety
or justice withhold.

"I go back to the time when I first paid you a visit at your parsonage.
I never shall forget the cheery joyousness of that little family scene
at your fireside, the winning modesty and womanliness of your lost
Rachel, and the serenity and peace that lay about your household. It was
to me, fresh from the vices of Europe, like some charming Christian
idyl, in whose atmosphere I felt myself not only an alien, but a profane
intruder; for, at that very time, I was bound by one of those criminal
_liaisons_ to which so many strangers on the Continent are victims. Your
household and your conversation prompted a hope and a struggle for
better things. But, my dear Johns, the struggle was against a whole
atmosphere of vice. And it was only when I had broken free of
entanglement, that I learned, with a dreary pang, that I was the father
of a child,--my poor, dear Adele!"

The Doctor crumpled the letter in his hand, and smote upon his
forehead. Never, in