se from him. As it was, all the caution had to be on Mr.
Robert's side. He asked that letters might be sent to his
brother-in-law, Mr. Smythe, to his father, Mr. James Roberts, proving,
not his financial standing, the unmistakable knowledge of the private
affairs of the firm that had established him there, but of his moral
character, and his standing in the Christian world.

Do you believe that Mr. Shipley felt the necessity? Not he! Had he not
been willing more than that, anxious that his daughter's fortune should
be linked with Col. Baker's? Did he not know what was Col. Baker's
standing in the moral and Christian world? After all, is it any wonder,
when there are such fathers that many daughters make shipwreck of their
lives? As for Mr. Roberts, he was almost indignant:

"The man would actually sell her, if by that means he could be
recognized in business by our house."

If it had been any other young man than himself, who was in question,
how his indignation would have blazed at such proceedings! But since it
_was_ himself, he decided to accept the situation.

As for Flossy, she did not look at the matter in that light; when she
found that all the perplexities and clouds had been so suddenly and so
strangely smoothed and cleared from before her way, she thought of
those hours of wakeful anxiety that she had wasted the night before; and
of how, finally, she had made her heart settle back on the watchful care
and love of the Father who was so wise and so powerful, and in the quiet
of her own room, she smiled, as she said aloud:

"'Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it
to pass.' How much pleasanter it would have been to have committed it in
the first place, before I wearied my heart with worrying over what I
could not lift my finger to make different!"

So in less time than it has taken me to tell it, the rough places
smoothed suddenly before Flossy Shipley's feet. She was free now, to go
to parties, or to prayer-meetings, or to stay at home according to her
own fancy, for was she not the promised wife of a partner of the firm of
Bostwick, Smythe, Roberts & Co.?

It transpired that Mr. Roberts had come to make a somewhat extended stay
in the city, to look after certain business affairs connected with the
firm, and also to look after certain business interests of the great
Master, whose work he labored at with untiring persistence, always
placing it above all other plans, and work