nough for us both, for the present, and by and by I know he will have
an abundance. I suppose Belle and Wilhelm will object and scold, but I
don't care; it is the right thing to do, and I am going to do it," and
she proceeded to put her resolution at once into action.

She drew her writing tablet before her, and, with the tears still
glittering on her lashes and a crimson flush on her cheek, she penned
the following reply to her lover's letter:

"Dear Wallace:--Your letter has just come to me. I have
nothing to 'forgive'--I do not wish to 'forget.' Perhaps I am
guilty of what the world would call an unmaidenly act in writing
thus, when your communication does not really call for a reply,
but I know my happiness, and, I believe, yours also, depends upon
perfect truthfulness and candor. Your unguarded words by your
mother's casket told me that you love me; your letter to-day
reaffirms it, and my own heart goes forth in happy response to all
that you have told me.

"You have made use of the expression, 'presumption and wrong.'
Pardon me if I claim that you would have been guilty of a greater
wrong by keeping silent. Heaven has ordained that somewhere on
this earth each heart has its mate, and there would be much less
of secret sorrow, much less of domestic misery, if people would be
honest with each other and true to themselves. How many lives are
ruined by the worship of mammon--by the bondage of position!
Perhaps I might be accused of 'presumption'--of offending against
all laws of so-called etiquette, in making this open confession.
However it may seem, I am going to be true to myself, and my
convictions of what is right, and so I have opened my heart to
you. Still, if in writing thus, I have done aught that can lower
me in your esteem, I pray you to forgive and forget.

"Violet Huntington."

Violet would not allow herself to read over what she had written.

She had penned the note out of the honesty and fullness of her fond
little heart; and, though she stood for a moment or two irresolute,
debating whether to tear it into pieces and thus cast her happiness
forever from her with the fragments, or to send it and trust to
Wallace's good sense to interpret it aright, her good angel touched the
balance in her favor, and she resolutely sealed and addressed the
missive.

Then she stole softly down stairs and out to the street