--Friedrich von Logau.

David's welcome home was quiet, cordial and heartfelt. The Quaker life
is calm; storms seldom appear on its surface, even though they must
sometimes agitate its depths; mind and heart are brought under
remarkable control; sympathy and charity are extended to the erring;
hospitality is a duty and an instinct; domestic love is deep and
powerful.

When David had frankly told his story, he was permitted to resume his
place in the life of the old homestead as if nothing had happened. He
expressed to his brother and sister his love for Pepeeta, and his
determination to make her his wife in lawful marriage.

They assented to his plans, and at the earliest possible moment the
minister and elders of the little congregation of Friends were asked to
meet, in accordance with their custom, to "confer with him about a
concern which was on his mind."

They came, and heard his story and his intention, told with
straightforward simplicity. They, too, touched with sympathy and moved
to confidence, agreed that there was no obstacle to the union. The date
of the wedding was placed at the end of the month, which, by their
ecclesiastical law, must elapse after this avowal, and an evening
meeting was appointed for the ceremony.

In the meantime David remained quietly at home, and took up his old
labors as nearly as possible where he had laid them down. Such a life as
he had been leading induces a distaste for manual labor, and sometimes
he chafed against it. Again and again he felt his spirit faint within
him when he recalled the scenes of excitement through which he had
passed, and looked forward to years of this unvaried drudgery; but he
never permitted his soul to question his duty! He had decided in the
most solemn reflections of his life that he would conquer himself in the
place where he had been defeated, perform the tasks which he had so
ignominiously abandoned, and then, when he had demonstrated his power to
live a true life himself, devote his strength to helping others.

The charms of this pastoral existence gradually came to his support in
his heroic resolution. The unbroken quiet of the happy valley which had
irritated him at first, grew to be more and more a balm to his wounded
spirit. The society of the animal world lent its gracious consolation;
the great horses, the ponderous oxen, the doves fluttering and cooing
about the barnyard, the suckling calves, the playful colts, all came to
him a