Utter amazement at so base a proposal kept the girl silent for an instant; then releasing herself from Espy’s supporting arm, she stood erect before her tempter, her hands tightly clenched, a crimson tide rushing over the face so pale but a moment ago, the great dark eyes flashing with indignant anger, then filling with tears of deeply wounded feeling.

“Ah, I see; you were not serious. You could not believe me capable of such a crime. But it was a cruel jest,” she said in a choking voice, and ending with a burst of almost hysterical weeping.

“Crime!” echoed Mr. Alden testily. “Girl, you don’t know what you are talking about! How can it be a crime to take the property your father accumulated expressly for you?”

“I beg, sir, that the matter may be allowed to rest for the present,” interposed Espy; “we have had a hard day’s work, and Floy is not in a condition, either mentally or physically, to attend to business.”

“Well, well, just as she pleases; there’s no particular hurry, and I’d be the last one to want to distress her,” returned Mr. Alden, and taking up his hat he stalked out of the room, evidently not over-pleased. In fact, his ire was roused not a little by the term Floy had applied to his proposition.

“Crime indeed!” he muttered to himself as he hurried down the garden path. “As if I—I could be thought capable of suggesting a crime!”

He hastened to his wife with his grievance.

“Oh, well, never mind the child; she’s only a slip of a girl, and I dare say hardly knows what a crime is,” Mrs. Alden answered soothingly. “But really, remembering how they doted on her and petted her, I never was more surprised at anything in my life than to hear that she wasn’t their own.”

“Nor I, Jane; and if she’s going to be such a fool as to publish the thing and give up the property that she knows, and we all know, was intended for her, why—I’ll withdraw my consent—”

“Oh, now, Nathan, don’t say that!” hastily interrupted his wife, knowing that he was an obstinate man and prided himself on keeping his word. “You might come to wish you hadn’t, for she’s a nice girl, and we’re all fond of her—you as well as the rest of us. There, now, I must go and see about supper,” she added, making an excuse to leave him before he had had time to commit himself.

Worn out with grief, excitement, and over-exertion, Floy went to bed that night with a raging headache, and for the next two or three days was able to do little but lie on the sofa.

Espy was with her almost constantly, saving her as much as possible from every annoyance, and comforting her with his sympathy and love.

They were not days of mirth and gladness, but of much heaviness of heart, yet often looked back upon in after years with tender regret, a mournful sweetness lingering about their memory.

As by mutual consent both Floy and Espy avoided the subject of the missing papers and her future action in regard to the property. It frequently obtruded itself upon Floy’s thoughts, but she refused to consider it for the time being; it must wait until she had strength for the struggle which she foresaw was before her if she would follow the dictates of an enlightened conscience.

Mr. Alden grew impatient.

“Espy,” he said at length, “what is Floy going to do?”

“She has not told me, sir; the subject has not been mentioned between us.”

“Then it’s high time it was; I hope you’ll talk to her about it to-day, and try to convince her of the reasonableness of the course I have recommended.”

“I should rather not undertake it, sir. I am not at all sure that hers is not the right view of the matter.”

“Come, now, don’t be a fool, Espy!” returned his father angrily. “You’d be standing amazingly in your own light, if you mean to marry the girl; it’s a fine property, and would give you just the start in life you need. Why, you might give up studying for a profession and devote yourself at once to your beloved art,” he added, with an unpleasant laugh.

The young man flushed deeply. “I should despise myself, sir, if I could act from such motives,” he said, forcing himself to speak quietly, though the hot blood coursed through his veins.

“Your father doesn’t mean that he wants you to marry for money, or to do anything dishonest to get it,” interposed Mrs. Alden. “All he asks is that you will persuade Floy not to throw away what we all know was meant for her.”

“No, I’ll take back that request,” said the elder gentleman. “Leave her to me; that’s all I ask.”

“I shall not try to influence her one way or the other,” said Espy. “But, father, be patient with her if she can’t see things just as you do. She’s almost heart-broken already, poor child!”

This conversation had taken place at the breakfast-table, and immediately on the conclusion of the meal Espy hastened to Floy to learn how she was in health, determined to save her from an encounter with his father until she felt quite equal to it.

He found her free from pain, calm and quiet in manner, though with an expression of deep sadness in her large dark eyes and about the lines of her mobile mouth. She was strangely changed from the careless, light-hearted creature of a week ago. Sorrow and bereavement had done the work of years, and the child of yesterday had become a self-poised, self-reliant woman.

She had spent some hours that morning in earnest thought, asking wisdom and strength from Him who has declared Himself in a peculiar sense the “Father of the fatherless,” and in searching His Word for direction; and now her mind was fully made up.

Espy told her of his father’s intended call, and asked if she would see him, adding, “Don’t hesitate to decline, Floy. You can guess his errand.”

“Yes,” she said, sighing slightly, “and I cannot follow his wishes, because it would be doing violence to my conscience. But I will hear all he has to say. Ah,” she added, tears filling her eyes, “it is hard to be compelled to do what vexes and angers those you love and would fain please rather than yourself! Espy, will you turn against me?”

“Never, never, my poor child! I will stand by you through everything.”

The door opened, and the elder Mr. Alden came in.

“Ah, good-morning, my dear child,” he said, taking Floy’s hand. “Glad to see you about again! should have been here before, but Espy insisted that you were better let alone.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Please be seated.”

He was not long in introducing the real object of his visit, but approached the subject with more caution than before. He spoke of Mr. Kemper’s great fondness for her and his fatherly pride in her, and the determination he had been frequently heard to express, that if he could prevent it his darling should never know what it was to want for the comforts and even luxuries of life.

“Yes,” murmured Floy, the tears stealing down her pale cheeks, “father loved me very dearly, and was always tenderly careful of me.”

“And can you believe that he would want the property he accumulated to be enjoyed by some one else, and you left to struggle with poverty?” asked Mr. Alden.

“No; oh no, no!”

“Ah!” There was a world of meaning in the slight exclamation. It said, “So you are coming to your senses at last! you see now that I was right, and I’m delighted that such is the case.”

“Do not mistake me, Mr. Alden,” said the girl, sighing. “I am certain father would have preferred to leave me well provided for, but he may have finally concluded that it would be more just to leave his property to those who were related to him by ties of blood.”

Emotion stopped her utterance; she had not yet learned to think and speak calmly of the fact that there was no natural tie between herself and those who had been as the dearest of parents to her.

“Nonsense!” was the angry exclamation that rose to Mr. Alden’s lips; but checking himself, he said in a tone of mild expostulation, “I am sure, my dear child, you need not trouble yourself with any such fears. He made every cent of his money, and certainly had a perfect right to leave it as he pleased. And there is not the least doubt in my mind that you would be following out his wishes in retaining possession of it. Indeed I think it would be very wrong as well as foolish to do otherwise.”

“Why wrong?”

“Because it would be disposing of his property as he would not have wished it to be disposed of.”

“Ah, Mr. Alden, suppose you were his next of kin, would you not see this matter differently?”

“Well—possibly our own interests are very apt to blind us to the rights of others.”

Floy smiled faintly, thinking how nearly akin to a man’s own interest was that of his son.

“Yes,” she said, “that is human nature; we are naturally selfish, I as well as others; so much so that if I knew the property was lawfully mine I should never think of giving it away.”

“Then don’t.”

“Ah, it is not mine to give or to keep, but must go to the rightful heirs.”

Mr. Alden bit his lips with vexation, rose and paced the room for some moments; then, having recovered control of himself, came and sat down by Floy.

“I know you want to do right,” he said pleasantly, “and I have only to convince you that the course I wish you to take is right to induce you to take it.”

“I cannot tell you how gladly I should do so,” she answered.

At this moment Espy, who had taken no part in the conversation, though a deeply interested listener, was, much to his discontent, summoned away by a message from his mother.

Mr. Alden did most of the talking for the next hour, going over the old arguments again and again, but bringing forward little that was new except that Mr. and Mrs. Kemper, in adopting her as their own child, had given her all the rights of a child, and therefore, will or no will, she was the proper heir.

“Is that according to the law of the land?” she asked, a gleam of hope shining in her eyes.

He evaded the question. “Human laws are very faulty; we need not always be bound by them.”

“No, not when they come in collision with the higher law of God; but that is not the case in this instance.”

After a moment’s thought and stroking of his beard, he began on another tack, speaking of Espy and his plans, and dwelling at considerable length upon the great advantage it would be to the young man if his wife had sufficient means to give him a start in life.

Floy heard him to the end in unbroken silence, her hands tightly clasped in her lap, a look of pain more than once crossing her features, while the color came and went on her cheek.

He seemed to have finished, but she neither moved nor spoke.

“Well,” he said, rising and taking up his hat from the table where he had placed it on entering, “I’ll leave you to think it all over. Good-morning!”

“Stay!” she said, suddenly rising and standing before him, her hands still clasped, a look of anguish in her eyes as she lifted them to his, her voice tremulous with emotion, not from any faltering of purpose. “I need no further time for deliberation. I have thought and prayed over this matter, and my duty has been made very clear to me. Right and justice must be done, at whatever cost to me or to—”

The last word was lost in a bitter, choking sob.

Mr. Alden turned abruptly on his heel and left the house.