must do with Faith, the blood stood still in my heart.

"Ask mother, Dan," says I,--for I couldn't have advised him. "She knows
best about everything."

So he asked her.

"I think--I'm sorry to think, for I fear she'll not make you a good
wife," said mother, "but that perhaps her love for you will teach her to
be--you'd best marry Faith."

"But I can't marry her!" said Dan, half choking; "I don't want to marry
her,--it--it makes me uncomfortable-like to think of such a thing. I
care for the child plenty----Besides," said Dan, catching at a bright
hope, "I'm not sure that she'd have me."

"Have you, poor boy! What else can she do?"

Dan groaned.

"Poor little Faith!" said mother. "She's so pretty, Dan, and she's so
young, and she's pliant. And then how can we tell what may turn up about
her some day? She may be a duke's daughter yet,--who knows? Think of the
stroke of good-fortune she may give you!"

"But I don't love her," said Dan, as a finality.

"Perhaps----It isn't----You don't love any one else?"

"No," said Dan, as a matter of course, and not at all with reflection.