gh
places of high mountains, where frost and barrenness give it no help
nor chance; but there, where no other flower ever blossoms, it opens
its flowers patiently and perseveringly; and its flowers are very
sweet. Nothing checks it nor discourages it. As soon as the great cold
lets it come, it comes; and as long as the least mildness lets it stay,
it stays. Amidst snow and tempest and desolation it opens its blossoms
and spreads its sweetness, with nobody to see it nor to praise it;
where from the nature of the place it lives in, its work is all alone.
For no other flower will bear what it bears.--Will that do?" said
Faith, looking up gravely at her questioner.

Very gently, very reverently even, he took her hand, put it upon his
arm and led her to a seat, speaking as he went low words of gratified
pardon asking. "You must forgive me!" he said. "Forfeits must be
forfeits, you know. I couldn't resist the temptation."

"Now wasn't that pretty?" whispered Miss Essie in the mean time in Mr.
Linden's ear.

He had listened, leaning against the mantelpiece, and with shaded eyes
looking down; and now to Miss Essie's question returned only a grave
bend of the head.

"If you have been looking at the floor all this while, you have lost
something," said the lady. "Do you know your turn comes next? Mr.
Linden--ladies and gentlemen!--is condemned to tell us what he holds
the most precious thing in this world; and to justify himself in his
opinion by an argument, a quotation, and an illustration!"--

"Now will he find means to evade his sentence!" said Mrs. Stoutenburgh
laughing.

"He has confessed himself addicted to witchcraft in my hearing," said
the doctor, who had remained standing by Faith's chair.

"The most precious thing in the world," said Mr. Linden, in a tone as
carelessly graceful as his attitude, "is that which cannot be
bought,--for if money could buy it, then were money equally valuable.
Take for illustration, the perfection of a friend."

"_I_ don't understand,"--said Miss Essie; "but perhaps I shall when I
hear the rest."

He smiled a little and gave the quotation on that point in his own
clear and perfect manner.

"'A sweet, attractive kind of grace;
A full assurance given by looks;
Continual comfort in a face;
The lineaments of gospel books,--
I trow that countenance cannot lye
Whose thoughts are legible in the eye.'"

The quotation was received variously, but in general with va