me in purchasing a house before Lou returns from Europe, where the mother of one connected with our most fashionable as well as our most distinguished political circles can receive her daughter with becoming style.

"If Di accepts Mrs. Goodenow's invitation, you must give her at least one hundred dollars for the party dress, which will be indispensable; and much as I want my dear girl should have a taste of such innocent pleasures as other young people enjoy, I shall be ashamed to introduce her to Ralph's family unless she comes with a new cloak and two new dresses. Even if she has every advantage that dress can give her, she will be a striking contrast to Louise poor Di! she is so wanting in style.

"We shall return to Hanthrop before the 25th, and shall make ready during Lent for Lou's marriage and departure for Europe. Both events will probably occur before the 10th of April. Arthur will go to Washington to receive his instructions immediately after the engagement party, and will probably remain there until the last of March. With love to Di and Stephen,

The doctor read aloud those paragraphs of his wife's letter referring to Arthur's appointment, the party, and Diantha, but wisely withheld from his daughter her mother's severe and unjust criticisms upon himself. Yet there was a minor note of almost inexpressible sadness in his tones, revealing to Diantha's quick ear his disappointment and his wound.

Never had his large and generous heart craved human sympathy more than at this crisis. His affections had long since reached the summit of that trellis which his wife's cold, calculating worldliness presented, and now held out

tendrils, eager for that supporting love so necessary to the growth and development of every man's as well as every woman's life. Our hearts, like our intellects, demand sustenance, else they become dwarfed and shrivelled. Give us an earthly love sufficiently true, pure, and noble, and our hearts expand and deepen, our charities become broader, our labors sweeter, and our lives richer; and when this earthly love fails to reach us in our own homes, the greatest honor and reverence are due to those who seek not the sacrament God has ordained for our human needs, outside the channels He has blessed. But Dr. Howell's soul had climbed to true greatness by forgetting self, by helping others, and by drawing inspiration from the springs of Infinite Love; and only when freshly pained and wounded by his wife's coldness and wilful misinterpretation of his motives was he keenly conscious of his loss.

Diantha was the first to speak when the reading of the letter was completed.

"Dear father, I shall not go to New York."

66

Why, Daisy, what excuse can you offer? This is the 10th isn't there time enough for Madame Lavitte to get up a cloak and two new dresses in a style sufficiently magnificent to be seen by the cultivated circles of New York?" There was not only sadness in the doctor's tones, but a bitterness and sarcasm never heard when the better part of his nature was triumphant.

"I'm afraid my wardrobe would hardly be satisfactory to mother and I know your purse will be heavily taxed for the wedding festivities; but more than all, I could not be happy to leave you and Edna, now you need me more than mother does."

"Daisy, make your choice in this matter without considering the tax upon my purse. In disposing of my income, I always lay aside a sufficient sum for exigencies,

and can now give you the required amount without making any great sacrifice. Your mother may be more than half right when she accuses me of illiberal notions; and if the peculiar duties of my profession have made me narrow and conceited, I don't want my child's life to be warped and colored by my mistakes. You have earned a holiday by your faithful attendance on Edna, and I can make some arrangement by which Mrs. Atwood can remain here during your absence. Daisy, tell me if this journey would give you pleasure, if you knew I could afford the expense of it."

"To see New York, and to visit mother's relatives in a quiet way, will be very agreeable when I am in the mood; but to be perfectly candid, father, I don't think mother or Lou have expressed much heartiness in wishing me to join them. And you know there is to be a descent of style and grandeur upon our modest home, sufficient to liberalize the most depraved narrowness so I need not go to New

York for breadth and clearness of vision."

"Then stay at home, Daisy, and we'll prepare some pleasant surprises for your mother by rejuvenating her chamber and the parlor with fresh paper and paint; and perhaps by declining the New York invitations we can afford to buy a new parlor carpet."

"If we could," exclaimed Diantha, her face radiant and flushing with pleasure, "it would be worth more than all New York to me!"

"Extravagant!" said the doctor, touching her flushed cheeks; but he carried a lighter heart to his professional duties that winter day, because of Diantha's tender love, and because of her appreciation of his motives and her hearty coöperation in his work.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MORNING VISITOR.

"Her air, her smile, her motions told

Of womanly completeness;

A music as of household songs
Was in her voice of sweetness."

WHITTIER.

"To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba? and the sweet cane from a far country?"

"MISS HOWELL, I shall carry the remembrance of that anthem with me to the bleak country parsonage where your father says I must spend the next three months," said Captain Ashmead, when Diantha rose from the piano. She had just finished singing for him the air from Mendelssohn's Elijah, "O, rest in the Lord; wait patiently for Him." Her own faith found expression in the words and music; and no wonder her voice, always tenderly sweet and thrilling, had left an echo in the captain's heart, especially when we remember that his ears had been more familiar with the creaking of cordage and the roar of breakers than with the sound of a piano or a woman's voice.

The captain had prolonged his first call much beyond conventional limits before he asked for music; but Dr. Howell's parlor― rejuvenated with a delicately tinted paper and a new Brussels carpet, whose richly-blended colors harmonized with the paper, and a few modern articles of

furniture, which had been purchased as a peace offeringlooked so bright that any one might well be excused for lingering, even had the room possessed no other attraction than its pretty paper, bright carpet, and pleasant pictures. But when a dainty little girl sat upon a low stool by his side, leaning upon him with child-like trust and affection, and raising to him eyes that shone with truth and innocence, listening to him with a rare commingling of childish simplicity and womanly intelligence, any man might have sinned against the laws of etiquette, and remained almost unconscious of the lapsing hours. Edna Shreve's affection for Captain Ashmead was heightened by the feeling that he was the only connecting link between her new and her old life.

But aside from the agreeable features of the room, and the charming artlessness of the child who leaned upon him, there sat opposite him one who seemed to the honest captain complete in gracefulness and intelligence; whose low voice had sweetest music for him, and whose every word, look, and movement were garnered in his heart with a miserly eagerness known only to strong natures that have not been stirred by deep passions until near the noontide of life. Captain Ashmead was past thirty, and had been in port so few months since he was a boy, that he knew comparatively little of woman's society, until the wreck of the Stella brought him into friendly relations with the doctor's daughter; and alas! this very wreck, which awakened him to such sweet possibilities, had also deprived him of the power to ask any woman for her love. The cruel, grasping waves had swallowed all the captain's means; and without a home, without employment even, and crippled! He dared not dwell for a moment on his losses; but looking at Diantha Howell, whose hands were busied with a bit of sewing, which gave her brown eyes