h. "You knew I should ask this some day,"
he continued, rather rapidly. "This is the day."

"I did not really know--I don't know how I feel--" she began,
faltering.

"I did not know how I felt, either, until an hour ago," he
explained. "When my father and my mother told me they had arranged
my marriage with--"

"With whom?" she almost demanded.

"A girl of my own people," he said, grudgingly. "A girl I honor and
respect, but--"

"But what?" she said weakly, for the mention of his possible
marriage with another had flung her own feelings into her very
face.

"But unless you will be my wife, I shall never marry." He folded
his arms across his chest as he said it--the very action expressed
finality. For a second he stood erect, dark, slender, lithe,
immovable, then with sudden impulse he held out one hand to her and
spoke very quietly. "I love you, Lydia. Will you come to me?"

"Yes," she answered clearly. "I will come."

He caught her hands very tightly, bending his head until his fine
face rested against her hair. She knew then that she had loved him
through all these years, and that come what might, she would love
him through all the years to be.

That night she told her frail and fading sister, whom she found
alone resting among her pillows.

"'Liza dear, you are crying," she half sobbed in alarm, as the great
tears rolled slowly down the wan cheeks. "I have made you unhappy,
and you are ill, too. Oh, how selfish I am! I did not think that
perhaps it might distress you."

"Liddy, Liddy darling, these are the only tears of joy that I have
ever shed!" cried Elizabeth. "Joy, joy, girlie! I have wished this
to come before I left you, wished it for years. I love George
Mansion better than I ever loved brother of mine. Of all the world
I should have chosen him for your husband. Oh! I am happy, happy,
child, and you will be happy with him, too."

And that night Lydia Bestman laid her down to rest, with her heart
knowing the greatest human love that had ever entered into her
life.

Mr. Evans was almost beside himself with joyousness when the young
people rather shyly confessed their engagement to him. He was
deeply attached to his wife's young sister, and George Mansion had
been more to him than many a man's son ever is. Seemingly cold and
undemonstrative, this reserved Scotch missionary had given all his
heart and life to the Indians, and this one boy was the apple of
his eye. Far-sighted and cautious, he