nd was heard by the wakeful owl as
he sat perched on some high branch, or with rush of wings flew through
the air seeking his prey. They spoke of the camp meeting and the
commoner events of every day life, occasionally asking the opinion of
Jasper and Viola concerning this or that event or notion. But George on
the front seat was too much occupied with guiding the horses through
the uncertain light and with the chat of the fair girl at his side to
pay much attention to those in the rear seats, and the two girls in the
middle naturally kept their eyes and ears turned forward. This left
Jasper and Viola in a measure to themselves. They spoke occasionally to
each other, but their words were fewer than their thoughts.

Jasper's heart in the meeting had been aflame with love to God and his
fellowman, and what better soil than that can there be for a man's love
for a pure and beautiful woman to spring and grow? All the wealth of
his great nature was even then being given to the woman at his side,
and he felt the hour had come to make that love known. And Viola was
ready to receive it as a most precious gift and in return to offer a
yet richer treasure, a woman's unsullied affection.

In that carriage was about to take place the world's most wondrous
mystery--two lives, which for months had been drawn together more and
more strongly by a power which no man can understand, at last meeting
and blending in a union which God in heaven makes and which eternity
cannot sever.

Jasper did not need words to express his love nor Viola to receive it.
They were more than half way home when Jasper moved his large, honest,
chivalrous right hand over to Viola and took her small, beautiful hand
in his. She did not resist the act, but let her little hand lie in his
broad palm. That was all. Their betrothal was as silent as the meeting
of God and a human soul. Words were not needed. They seemed out of
place. They would have appeared almost a profanation. In fact they
could not then have been spoken. The light carriage robe covered those
two hands, and the laughing girls in the next seat did not suspect that
just behind them an engagement without words was taking place. What
joys, what sorrows, what tragedies and comedies occur so near us that
we can almost touch them with our fingers, and yet we are unconscious
of their existence?

So they rode along by the quiet river. Sometimes the stream was hidden
by high and mighty trees and willows gr