to win his bread by the sweat of
his brow, may still enjoy all those graceful amenities of which woman
was the type in Paradise and is the promoter here; that the light of
knowledge and the divine light of faith may still cheer him in his
pursuits and guide him to his rest. It seems to me that to bring out
these principles fairly to the world's perception, is the mission to
which America has been especially appointed--is that for which Americans
should live; and to this I have accordingly devoted myself. For this I
purchased my present property--for this I determined, while allowing
myself and my daughter all the comforts of life, to dispense with many
of those luxuries to which my fortune might have seemed to entitle us,
lest I should separate myself too far from those I would aid. Here I
have spent seventeen years of life, happy in my work, and happier in the
conviction that it has not been in vain."

As Mr. Grahame paused, Horace Danforth turned to Mary Grahame. Her eyes
were fixed upon him. They seemed to challenge his admiration for her
father, in whose hand her own was clasped, as though she would thus
intimate the perfect accordance of her feelings with his.

"And this, then," he said to her, "is your object?"

"It is."

"An object to which you were devoted by your father in your infancy?"

"And which I have since adopted on my own intelligent conviction," said
Mary, earnestly, losing all timidity in a glow of that generous
enthusiasm which sits so gracefully on a gentle woman.

There was silence in the little circle--silence with all; with one,
thought was rapidly passing down the long vista of the past, and
pointing the awakened mind to the fact that elsewhere than in America
was there ignorance to be enlightened and want to be relieved--that not
here only did Christianity teach that man should live not unto himself
alone, and that he should love his neighbor as himself.

The thoughts and feelings aroused on that evening colored the whole
future destiny of Horace Danforth. Ere another day had passed, he had
confided to his host so much of his history as proved him to be an
aimless and almost unconnected wanderer on the earth, with a prospect
of a fortune which, unequal to the demands of a man of fashion in
England, would give to a _worker_ in America great influence for good or
for evil--as the personal property of Sir Thomas Maitland could not, as
Horace Danforth was well aware, be valued at less than 5