ink as the crab-apple bloom in his grasp.

They talked a little of commonplace things, and Marg'et Ann looked down
and swallowed once or twice before she said gravely,--

"I hoped you'd come forward this sacrament, Lloyd."

The young man's brow clouded.

"I've told you I can't join the church without telling a lie, Marg'et
Ann. You wouldn't want me to tell a lie," he said, flushing hotly.

She shook her head, looking down, and twisting her handkerchief into a
ball in her hands.

"I know you have doubts about some things; but I thought they might be
removed by prayer. Have you prayed earnestly to have them removed?" She
looked up at him anxiously.

"I've asked to be made to see things right," he replied, choking a
little over this unveiling of his holy of holies; "but I don't seem to
be able to see some things as you do."

She pondered an instant, looking absently at the headstone of
"Hephzibah," who was the later of Robert McCoy's two beloved wives, then
she said, with an effort, for these staid descendants of Scottish
ancestry were not given to glib talking of sacred things:

"I suppose doubts are sent to try our faith; but we have the promise
that they will be removed if we ask in the right spirit. Are you sure
you have asked in the right spirit, Lloyd?"

"I have prayed for light, but I haven't asked to have my doubts removed,
Marg'et Ann; I don't know that I want to believe what doesn't appear
reasonable to me."

The girl lifted a troubled, tremulous face to his.

"That isn't the right spirit, Lloyd,--you know it isn't. How can God
remove your doubts if you don't want him to?"

The young man reached up and broke off a twig of the round, pink
crab-apple buds and rolled the stem between his work-hardened hands.

"I've asked for light," he repeated, "and if when it comes I see things
different, I'll say so; but I can't want to believe what I don't
believe, and I can't pray for what I don't want."

The triangle of Marg'et Ann's brow between her burnished satin puffs of
hair took on two upright, troubled lines. She unfolded her handkerchief
nervously, and her token fell with a ringing sound against tired
Hephzibah's gravestone and rolled down above her patiently folded hands.

Lloyd stooped and searched for it in the grass. When he found it he gave
it to her silently, and their hands met. Poor Marg'et Ann! No hunted
Covenanter amid Scottish heather was more a martyr to his faith than
this rose-cheeked g