arcely gave
Felix a chance of seeing the expression of his face; but the young man's
heart beat high with hope.

"You don't say No to me?" he faltered.

"How can I say No or Yes?" asked Canon Pascal, almost with an accent of
surprise. "I will talk it over with your mother and Alice's mother; but
the Yes or No must come from Alice herself. What am I that I should
stand between you two and God, if it is His will to bestow His sweet
boon upon you both? Only do not disturb the child, Felix. Leave her
fancy-free a little longer."

"And you are willing to take me as your son? You do not count me
unworthy?" he exclaimed.

"I've boys of my own," he answered, "whose up-growing I've watched from
the day of their birth, and who are precious to me as my own soul; and
you, Felix, come next to them. You've been like another son to me. But I
must see your mother. Who knows what thoughts she may not have for her
only son?"

"None, none that can come between Alice and me," cried Felix
rapturously. "Father! yes, I shall know again what it is to have a
father."

A sob rose to his throat as he uttered the word. He seemed to see his
own father again, as he remembered him in his childhood, and as Phebe's
portrait had recalled him vividly to his mind. If he had only lived till
now to witness, and to share in this new happiness! It seemed as if his
early death gathered an additional sadness about it, since he had left
the world while so much joy and gladness had been enfolded in the
future. Even in this first moment of ineffable happiness he promised
himself that he would go and visit his father's foreign grave.

CHAPTER III.

FELICITA'S REFUSAL.

Now there was no longer a doubt weighing upon his spirit, Felix longed
to tell his mother all. The slight cloud that had arisen of late years
between them was so gossamer-like yet, that the faintest breath could
drive it away. Though her boy was not the brilliant genius she had
secretly and fondly hoped he would prove, he was still dearer to
Felicita than ought else on earth or, indeed, in heaven; and her love
for him was deeper than she supposed. On his part he had never lost that
chivalrous tenderness, blended with deferential awe, with which he had
regarded her from his early boyhood. His love for Alice was so utterly
different from his devotion to her, that he had never compared them, and
they had not come into any kind of collision yet.

Felix sought his mother in her libra