miled incredulously.

"I'll risk your impertinence, and decide as to its boldness."

"Tell me, please, what that preacher said to you to-day."

Margaret looked away, unable to suppress the merriment that played about
her eyes and mouth.

"Will you never breathe it to a soul if I do?"

"Never."

"Honest Injun, here on the sacred altar of the princess?"

"On my honour."

"Then I'll tell you," she said, biting her lips to keep back a laugh. "Mr.
McAlpin is very handsome and eloquent. I have always thought him the best
preacher we have ever had in Piedmont----"

"Yes, I know," Phil interrupted with a frown. "He is very pious," she went
on evenly, "and seeks Divine guidance in prayer in everything he does. He
called this morning to see me, and I was playing for him in the little
music-room off the parlour, when he suddenly closed the door and said:

"'Miss Margaret, I am going to take, this morning, the most important step
of my life----'

"Of course I hadn't the remotest idea what he meant----

"'Will you join me in a word of prayer?' he asked, and knelt right down. I
was accustomed, of course, to kneel with him in family worship at his
pastoral calls, and so from habit I slipped to one knee by the piano
stool, wondering what on earth he was about. When he prayed with fervour
for the Lord to bless the great love with which he hoped to hallow my
life--I giggled. It broke up the meeting. He rose and asked me to marry
him. I told him the Lord hadn't revealed it to me----"

Phil seized her hand and held it firmly. The smile died from the girl's
face, her hand trembled, and the rose tint on her cheeks flamed to
scarlet.

"Margaret, my own, I love you," he cried with joy. "You could have told
that story only to the one man whom you love--is it not true?"

"Yes. I've loved you always," said the low, sweet voice.

"Always?" asked Phil through a tear.

"Before I saw you, when they told me you were as Ben's twin brother, my
heart began to sing at the sound of your name----"

"Call it," he whispered.

"Phil, my sweetheart!" she said with a laugh.

"How tender and homelike the music of your voice! The world has never seen
the match of your gracious Southern womanhood! Snowbound in the North, I
dreamed, as a child, of this world of eternal sunshine. And now every
memory and dream I've found in you."

"And you won't be disappointed in my simple ideal that finds its all
within a home?"

"No. I love the old-fash