There was silence in the little circle--silence with all; with one, thought was rapidly passing down the long vista of the past, and pointing the awakened mind to the fact that elsewhere than in America was there ignorance to be enlightened and want to be relieved--that not here only did Christianity teach that man should live not unto himself alone, and that he should love his neighbor as himself. The thoughts and feelings aroused on that evening colored the whole future destiny of Horace Danforth. Ere another day had passed, he had confided to his host so much of his history as proved him to be an aimless and almost unconnected wanderer on the earth, with a prospect of a fortune which, unequal to the demands of a man of fashion in England, would give to a _worker_ in America great influence for good or for evil--as the personal property of Sir Thomas Maitland could not, as Horace Danforth was well aware, be valued at less than 50,000 dollars. With that rapid decision which had ever marked his movements, the young Englishman determined to purchase land in the neighborhood of Mr. Grahame, there to rear his future hope, and to devote his life to the like noble purposes. The land was purchased, the site for the house was selected and marked out--but the house was never built--for ere that had been accomplished Horace Danforth discovered that the companionship of a cultivated woman was essential to his views of "Life in America," and that Mary Grahame was exactly the embodiment of that youthful vision which he had sought in vain elsewhere; for she united the delicacy and refined grace, with the intelligent mind, the active affections and energetic will, which were necessary at once to please his fancy and satisfy his heart Mary Grahame could not consent to leave her father to a lonely home, but yet she could not deny that it would be a sad home to her if deprived of the society of him whose intelligent and varied converse and manly tenderness had lately formed the chief charm of her existence. There was only one way of reconciling these conflicting claims. Horace Danforth must live with Mr. Grahame; and so he did, having first obtained that gentleman's permission to enlarge his house, and to furnish it with some of those inventions by which art has so greatly lightened domestic occupation, and which had been made familiar to him by his life abroad.