"Adah," I said, taking her hand, "you have become a genuine woman. The expression of your face has changed, and it has become a fine example of the truth, that even beauty follows the law of living growth--from within outward. Higher thoughts, noble principle, and unselfishness are making their impress. After our long separation I see the change distinctly, and I feel it still more. You have won my honest respect, Adah; I predict for you a happy life, and, what is more, you will make others happy. People will be the better for being with you." "Well, Richard, now that we are brother and sister, I don't mind telling thee that it was thee who woke me up. I was a fool before thee came." "But the true, sweet woman was in your nature ready to be awakened. Other causes would soon have produced the same effect." "Possibly; but I don't know anything about other causes. I do know thee, and I trust thee with my whole heart, and I'm going to talk frankly with thee because I want to ask thy advice. Thee knows how near to death I came. I've thought a great deal about it. Having come so near losing life, I began to think what life meant--what it was--and I was soon made to see how petty and silly my former life had been. My heart just overflowed with gratitude toward thee. When thee was so ill I would often lie awake whole nights thinking and trembling lest thee should die. I felt so strangely, so weak and helpless, that I stretched out my hands to thee, and thy strong hands caught and sustained me through that time when I was neither woman nor child. Thee never humiliated me by even a glance. Thee treated me with a respect that I did not deserve, but which I want to deserve. I am not strong, like Emily Warren, but I am trying to do right. Thee changed a blind impulse into an abiding trust and sisterly affection. Thee may think I'm giving thee a strange proof of my trust. I am going to tell thee something that I've not told any one yet. Last evening Gilbert Hearn took me to see his sister, Mrs. Bradford, and I spent the evening with them and little Adela. Coming home he asked me to be his wife. I was not so very greatly surprised, for he spent every First Day in October at our house while Adela was with us, and he was very attentive to me. Father and mother don't like it very much, but I think they are a little prejudiced against him on thy account. I believe thee will tell me the truth about him." "Adah dear, you _have_ honored me greatly. I will advise you just as I would my own sister. What did you answer him last evening?" "I told him that I was a simple country girl, and not suited to be his wife. Then he said that he had a right to his own views about that. He said he wanted a genuine wife--one that would love him and his little girl, and not a society woman, who would marry him for his money." "That is exceedingly sensible."