“Since you are so popular,” he went on, his eyes on her deft fingers, “I'd better try to make another engagement. I'd as well confess that I came in town solely to ask you to let me take you to church tomorrow evening.” He saw her start; she raised her eyes to his almost imploringly, and then she looked down. He saw her breast heave suddenly as with tightened lips she leaned forward to pin the flowers on his coat. The jewels in her rings flashed under his eyes; there was a delicate perfume in the air about her glorious head. He had never seen her look so beautiful before. He wondered at her silence at just such a moment. The tightness of her lips gave way and they fell to trembling when she started to speak. “I hardly know what to say,” she began. “I--I--you know I said the presiding elder was at our house, and--” “Oh, I understand,” broke in Alan; “that's all right. Of course, use your own--” “No, I must be plain with you,” she broke in, raising a pair of helpless, tortured eyes to his; “you will not think I had anything to do with it. In fact, my heart is almost broken. I'm very, very unhappy.” He was still totally at sea as to the cause of her strange distress. “Perhaps you'd rather not tell me at all,” he said, sympathetically; his tone never had been so tender. “You need not, you know.” “But it's a thing I could not keep from you long, anyway,” she said, tremulously. “In fact, it is due you--an explanation, I mean. Oh, Alan, papa has taken up the idea that we--that we like each other too much, and--” The life and soul seemed to leave Alan' s face. “I understand,” he heard himself saying; “he does not want me to visit you any more.” She made no reply; he saw her catch a deep breath, and her eyes went down to her flowers. The music struck up. The mulatto leader stood waving his fiddle and calling for “the grand march” in loud, melodious tones. There was a scrambling for partners; the young men gave their left arms to the ladies and merrily dragged them to their places. “I hope you do not blame me--that you don't think that I--” but the clatter and clamor ingulfed her words. “No, not at all,” he told her; “but it's awful--simply awful I I know you are a true friend, and that's some sort of comfort.” “And I always shall be,” she gulped. “You must try not to feel hurt. You know my father is a very peculiar man, and has an awful will, and nobody was ever so obstinate.” Then Alan' s sense of the great injustice of the thing rose up within him and his blood began to boil. “Perhaps I ought to take my name off your card,” he said, drawing himself up slightly; “if he were to hear that I talked to you to-night he might make it unpleasant for you.” “If you do I shall never--_never forgive you_,” she answered, in a voice that shook. There was, too, a glistening in her eyes, as if tears were springing. “Wouldn't that show that you harbored ill-will against me, when I am so helpless and troubled?”