blessing, not a
reproach to her father, she lived for him entirely. He had taken her
back to him, as if the burden of her unhappy past should be upon his
shoulders, the expiation of her faults come from him alone. Sylvia
understood this now, and nestled to him so gladly, so confidingly, he
seemed to have found again the daughter he had lost and be almost
content to have her all his own.

How many roofs cover families or friends who live years together, yet
never truly know each other; who love, and long and try to meet, yet
fail to do so till some unexpected emotion or event performs the work.
In the weeks that followed the departure of the friends, Sylvia
discovered this and learned to know her father. No one was so much to
her as he; no one so fully entered into her thoughts and feelings; for
sympathy drew them tenderly together, and sorrow made them equals. As
man and woman they talked, as father and daughter they loved; and the
beautiful relation became their truest solace and support.

Miss Yule both rejoiced at and rebelled against this; was generous, yet
mortally jealous; made no complaint, but grieved in private, and one
fine day amazed her sister by announcing, that, being of no farther use
at home, she had decided to be married. Both Mr. Yule and Sylvia had
desired this event, but hardly dared to expect it in spite of sundry
propitious signs and circumstances.

A certain worthy widower had haunted the house of late, evidently on
matrimonial thoughts intent. A solid gentleman, both physically and
financially speaking; possessed of an ill-kept house, bad servants, and
nine neglected children. This prospect, however alarming to others, had
great charms for Prue; nor was the Reverend Gamaliel Bliss repugnant to
her, being a rubicund, bland personage, much given to fine linen, long
dinners, and short sermons. His third spouse had been suddenly
translated, and though the years of mourning had not yet expired, things
went so hardly with Gamaliel, that he could no longer delay casting his
pastoral eyes over the flock which had already given three lambs to his
fold, in search of a fourth. None appeared whose meek graces were
sufficiently attractive, or whose dowries were sufficiently large.
Meantime the nine olive-branches grew wild, the servants revelled, the
ministerial digestion suffered, the sacred shirts went buttonless, and
their wearer was wellnigh distraught. At this crisis he saw Prudence,
and fell into a w