his chair. "It's a volume I've longed to possess,
but never could afford to buy. I cannot imagine who sent it to me."

Wynn was for a moment startled by the thought that this recipient of
valuable gifts might have influential friends. But a glance at the bare
room, which looked like a camp, and the strange, unconventional garb of
its occupant, restored his former convictions. There might be a promise
of intelligence, but scarcely of prosperity, in the figure before him.

"Ah! We must not forget that we are watched over in the night season,"
he said, laying his hand on Low's shoulder, with an illustration of
celestial guardianship that would have been impious but for its
palpable grotesqueness. "No, sir, we know not what a day may bring
forth."

Unfortunately, Low's practical mind did not go beyond a mere human
interpretation. It was enough, however, to put a new light in his eye
and a faint color in his cheek.

"Could it have been Miss Nellie?" he asked, with half-boyish
hesitation.

Mr. Wynn was too much of a Christian not to bow before what appeared to
him the purely providential interposition of this suggestion. Seizing
it and Low at the same moment, he playfully forced him down again in
his chair.

"Ah, you rascal!" he said, with infinite archness; "that's your game,
is it? You want to trap poor Father Wynn. You want to make him say
'No.' You want to tempt him to commit himself. No, sir!--never,
sir!--no, no!"

Firmly convinced that the present was Nellie's and that her father only
good-humoredly guessed it, the young man's simple, truthful nature was
embarrassed. He longed to express his gratitude, but feared to betray
the young girl's trust. The Reverend Mr. Wynn speedily relieved his
mind.

"No," he continued, bestriding a chair, and familiarly confronting Low
over its back. "No, sir--no! And you want me to say 'No,' don't you,
regarding the little walks of Nellie and a certain young man in the
Carquinez Woods?--ha, ha! You'd like me to say that I knew nothing of
the botanizings, and the herb collectings, and the picnickings
there--he-he!--you sly dog! Perhaps you'd like to tempt Father Wynn
further and make him swear he knows nothing of his daughter disguising
herself in a duster and meeting another young man--isn't it another
young man?--all alone, eh? Perhaps you want poor old Father Wynn to say
'No.' No, sir, nothing of the kind ever occurred. Ah, you young
rascal!"

Slightly troubled, in spite