ike
him to be always near you and have your care. And you have been kind
to me, and made me welcome and at home in what might otherwise have
seemed, after so long an absence, a strange land. You bring back to me
the best of my youth, and in you I find the inspiration for good
deeds. Be my wife, dear Laura, and a mother to my boy, and we will try
to make you happy."

"Oh, Henry," she cried with fluttering heart, "I am not worthy to be
your wife. I know nothing of the world where you have lived, nor
whether I would fit into it."

"You are worthy of any place," he declared, "and if one please you
more than another, I shall make your wishes mine."

"But, Henry, how could I leave my mother? And Graciella needs my
care."

"You need not leave your mother--she shall be mine as well as yours.
Graciella is a dear, bright child; she has in her the making of a
noble woman; she should be sent away to a good school, and I will see
to it. No, dear Laura, there are no difficulties, no giants in the
pathway that will not fly or fall when we confront them."

He had put his arm around her and lifted her face to his. He read his
answer in her swimming eyes, and when he had reached down and kissed
her cheek, she buried her head on his shoulder and shed some tears of
happiness. For this was her secret: she was sweet and good; she would
have made any man happy, who had been worthy of her, but no man had
ever before asked her to be his wife. She had lived upon a plane so
simple, yet so high, that men not equally high-minded had never
ventured to address her, and there were few such men, and chance had
not led them her way. As to the others--perhaps there were women more
beautiful, and certainly more enterprising. She had not repined; she
had been busy and contented. Now this great happiness was vouchsafed
her, to find in the love of the man whom she admired above all others
a woman's true career.

"Henry," she said, when they had sat down on the old hair-cloth sofa,
side by side, "you have made me very happy; so happy that I wish to
keep my happiness all to myself--for a little while. Will you let me
keep our engagement secret until I--am accustomed to it? It may be
silly or childish, but it seems like a happy dream, and I wish to
assure myself of its reality before I tell it to anyone else."

"To me," said the colonel, smiling tenderly into her eyes, "it is the
realisation of an ideal. Since we met that day in the cemetery you
have