arlotte's
lingering fears concerning her father.

"He probably got stunned," Anderson said; "and he cannot be very bad
or he would not be coming home on the noon train." He was talking to
Charlotte from his mother's room, with the door ajar.

There was something conclusive in Anderson's voice which reassured
Charlotte.

"My son would not say so unless he thought so," said Mrs. Anderson.
"He never says a thing he does not mean." She spoke with a double
meaning which Charlotte wholly missed. It had not occurred to her
that Mr. Anderson would have taken her in his arms last night and
kissed her and comforted her, if he had not been thoroughly in
earnest and in love with her. She supposed, of course, he wished to
marry her. All that troubled her was her own course in practically
proposing to him. Presently, after she and Mrs. Anderson were alone
together, she tried to say something about this to the other woman.

"I don't know as I ought to have come here last night," she said,
"but--"

"Where else would you have gone?" inquired Mrs. Anderson.

Charlotte looked up at her piteously. "I hope Mr. Anderson didn't
think I--I--ought not to," she whispered, and she felt her cheeks
blazing with shame. She did not know if Mrs. Anderson really knew,
but she was as much ashamed.

Mrs. Anderson stooped over her and laid her soft old cheek against
the soft young one. "My precious child!" she whispered. "I could not
help seeing last night, and this was just the place for you to come,
for this is your home, or is going to be; isn't it, dear?"

Charlotte put up her soft little arms around the other woman's neck,
and began to cry softly. "Oh," she sobbed, "I don't want him to think
that I--"

"Hush, dear! He will think nothing he ought not to think," said Mrs.
Anderson, who did not, in reality, know in the least what the girl
was troubled about, but rather thought it possible that she might
fear lest her son was not in earnest in his attentions, on her
father's account. She did not imagine Charlotte's faith and pride in
her father. "My son cares a great deal for you, dear child, or he
would never have done as he did last night," she said, "and some day
we are all going to be very happy."

Charlotte continued to sob softly, but not altogether unhappily.

"My son will make a very good husband," Mrs. Anderson said, with a
slight inflection of pride. "He will make a good husband, just as his
father did."

"He is the best man I