she asked. "I have only you in the wide
world now. If you were to die, I should be both orphaned and
destitute. What mean you by speaking of my future thus? Whom have I
in the wide world besides yourself?"

The father passed his hand over her curly hair, and answered with a
sigh and a smile:

"Surely, child, thou dost know by this time that the heart of
Reuben Harmer is all thine own. He worships the very ground on
which thou dost tread. His father and I have spoken of it. Fortune
has dealt more kindly with our neighbours than with me. Good James
Harmer has laid by money, while I have adventured it rashly in the
hope of large returns. This calamity has but checked his work for
these months; when the scourge is past, he will reopen business
once more, and will find himself but little the poorer. He is a
wiser man than I have been; and his wife and sons have all been
helpful to him. The love of Reuben Harmer is my assurance for thy
future welfare. Thou wilt never want so long as they have a roof
over their heads.

"Nay, now what ails thee, child? Why dost thou spring up and look
at me like that?"

For Gertrude's usually tranquil face was ablaze now with all manner
of conflicting emotions. She seemed for a moment almost too
agitated to speak, and when she could command herself there were
traces of great emotion in her voice.

"Father, father!" she cried, "how can you thus shame me? You must
know with what unmerited scorn and contumely Reuben was treated by
poor mother when it was we who were rich and they who were (in her
belief, at least) poor. She would scarce let him cross the
threshold of our house. I have tingled with shame at the way in
which she spoke of and to him. Frederick openly insulted him at
pleasure. Every slight was heaped upon him; and he was once told to
his very face that he might look elsewhere for a wife, for that my
fortune was to win me the hand of some needy Court gallant. Yes,
father, I heard with my own ears those very words spoken--save that
the term 'needy' was added in mine own heart. Oh, I could have
shrunk into the earth with shame. And after all this, after all
these insults and aspersions heaped upon him in the day of our
prosperity--am I to be made over to him penniless and needy,
without a shilling of dowry? Am I to be thrown upon his generosity
in my hour of poverty, when I was denied to him in my day of
supposed wealth?

"Father, father! I cannot, I will not permit it. I can