the farm that his matured manhood had fully recognized its answering
womanhood in her. He was slow to acknowledge the truth, even to his own
heart, and when it could no longer be denied, he locked it up and sealed
it with seven seals, determined never to betray it, to her or any one.
Then arose a wild hope, that respect might come with the independence
for which he was laboring, and perhaps he might dare to draw
nearer,--near enough to guess if there were any answer in her heart. It
was a frail support, but he clung to it as with his life, for there was
none other.

Now,--although his uncertainty was as great as ever,--his approach could
not humiliate her. His love brought no shadow of shame; it was proudly
white and clean. Ah! he had forgotten that she did not know,--that his
lips were sealed until his mother's should be opened to the world. The
curse was not to be shaken off so easily.

By the time he had twice traversed the long, weary road between Columbia
and Newport, Gilbert reached a desperate solution of this difficulty.
The end of his meditations was: "I will see if there be love in woman as
in man!--love that takes no note of birth or station, but, once having
found its mate, is faithful from first to last." In love, an honest and
faithful heart touches the loftiest ideal. Gilbert knew that, were the
case reversed, no possible test could shake his steadfast affection, and
how else could he measure the quality of hers? He said to himself:
"Perhaps it is cruel, but I cannot spare her the trial." He was prouder
than he knew,--but we must remember all that he endured.

It was a dry, windy March month, that year, and he made four good trips
before the first of April. Returning home from Newport, by way of
Wilmington, with seventy-five dollars clear profit in his pocket, his