find a strong reason for speech, I will remain deaf as I have been.'
That strong reason never arrived, my little girl, until all reason
ceased to be and love supplanted it."

"There is no reason, then, in your present passion," said Podge dryly.

"No. I am so absolutely in love that there is no resisting it. It is
boyishness wholly."

"I think I should be afraid of a man," said Podge, "who could have so
much will as to hold his tongue for seven years. Suppose you had a
second attack, it might never come to an end. What were you thinking
about all that time?"

"I thought how deaf, blind, and dumb was any one without love. I found
the world far better than it had seemed when I was one of its
chatterers. By my voluntary silence I had banished the disturbing
element in Nature; for our enemy is always within us, not without. In
that seven years, for most of which I heard everything and answered
none, except by my pencil, I was prosperous, observant, sober, and
considerate. The deceit of affecting not to hear has brought its
penalty, however. You are afraid of me."

"Were you ever in love before?"

"I fear I will surprise you again by my answer," said Duff Salter. "I
once proposed marriage to a young girl on this very lawn. It was in the
springtime of my life. We met at a picnic in a grove not far distant.
She was a coquette, and forgot me."

Podge said she must have time to know her heart. Every day they made a
new excursion, now into the country of the Neshaminy, and beyond it to
the vales of the Tohicken and Perkiomen. They descended the lanes along
the Pennypack and Poqessing, and followed the Wissahickon to its
sources. Podge rapidly grew in form and spirits, and Agnes and Andrew
Zane came out to spend a Saturday with them.

Mean time Andrew Zane was in a mystic condition--uncertain of purpose,
serious, and studious, and he called one night at the Treaty tavern to
see Duff Salter. Duff had gone, however, up the Tacony, and in a
listless way Andrew sauntered over to the little monument erected on the
alleged site of the Indian treaty. He read the inscription aloud:

"Treaty Ground of William Penn and the Indian Nations, 1682. Unbroken
Faith! Pennsylvania, founded by deeds of Peace!"

As Andrew ceased he looked up and beheld a man of rather portly figure,
with the plain clothes of a Quaker, a broad-brimmed hat, knee-breeches,
and buckled shoes. Something in his countenance was familiar. Andrew
looked again, an