With eyes meekly turned upward, she
answered in a calm, low voice,--"My dear father is in heaven; if he is
looking down, I feel that he will smile upon me, when, with my mother's
consent, she shall give me away to you. I have long ago given myself to
Christ, and if you recognize him as your Saviour, we will together serve
him as dutiful children, praying one for the other that we may
not fall."
"I am not like you," he replied; "I can never be as pure as you are;
neither am I what the world calls a Christian; but by God's help, I
pledge myself to be one of Christ's followers; and of one thing I am
confident, I shall never be if I grope my way alone through the world,
as I must if I lose you, what I shall be if I have you for a guide!"
"It is enough; you depreciate your own merits," she said, glancing
proudly upon him; "go, when I return, and with your own lips ask my
mother, if she can find a place in her noblest of women's hearts, for
him who is all too worthy of her daughter's love."
He folded her to his heart, and the rich harvest moon had sunk far below
the horizon, ere these two kindred spirits had wearied of the
glorious night.
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