til to-day had she noticed how aged and
bent it had grown. For the first time the possibility visited her heart
that there might be such a thing for her in the future as life without
her father.

Uncle Jasper had said he was not well; no, he did not look well. Her
eyes filled with tears as she closed the hall door and re-entered the
house. But her own prospects were too golden just now to permit her to
dwell as long, or as anxiously, as she otherwise would have done, on so
gloomy an aspect of her father's case.

Charlotte Harman was twenty-five years of age; but, except when her
mother died, death had never come near her young life. She could
scarcely remember her mother, and, with this one exception, death and
sickness were things unknown. She has heard of them of course; but the
grim practical knowledge, the standing face to face with the foe, were
not her experience. She was the kind of woman who could develop into the
most tender nurse, into the wisest, best, and most helpful guide,
through those same dark roads of sickness and death, but the training
for this was all to come. No wonder that in her inexperience she should
soon cease to dwell on her father's bent figure and drawn, white face. A
reaction was over her, and she must yield to it.

As she returned to the comfortable breakfast-room, her eyes shone
brighter through their momentary tears. She went over and stood by the
hearth. She was a most industrious creature, having trained herself not
to waste an instant; but to-day she must indulge in a happy reverie.

How dark had been those few hours after Mrs. Home had left her
yesterday; how undefined, how dim, and yet how dark had been her
suspicions! She did not know what to think, or whom to suspect; but she
felt that, cost her what it might, she must fathom the truth, and that
having once fathomed it, something might be revealed to her that would
embitter and darken her whole life.

And behold! she had done so. She had bravely grasped the phantom in both
hands, and it had vanished into thin air. What she dreamed was not.
There was no disgrace anywhere. A morbid young woman had conjured up a
possible tale of wrong. There was no wrong. She, Mrs. Home, was to be
pitied, and Charlotte would help her; but beyond this no dark or evil
thing had come into her life.

And now, what a great further good was in store for her! Her father had
most unexpectedly withdrawn his opposition over the slight delay he had
insi