"My child--my own child--I would give my life’s blood to render you happy!" Mrs. Vernon took the cold hand of Flora, and pressed it convulsively to her heart. "But I cannot--I dare not--trust you to one who is not treading the same path towards heaven: I cannot--dare not--let you break the command which bids our unions be ’_only in the Lord_.’" "You will refuse your consent?" exclaimed Flora, starting to her feet, and gazing on her mother with a look of wild dismay. "Oh, God help me!--God guide me!" murmured the unhappy parent, pressing her hand tightly over her brow. "You will refuse your consent?" repeated Flora, more wildly and passionately than before. "Mother, mother! you know not what you are doing!--you may break my heart, you may lay me in my grave; but"--her manner suddenly changed to one of clinging, confiding affection, as she sank at the feet of her mother, and looked imploringly up into her face--"but you will not, dear mother, you will not; you will let us be happy together. When you see him--when you know him--all these terrible doubts will pass quite away; you will look on him as I look--you will love him: only wait till he comes--till to-morrow." "To-morrow! is he coming?" gasped the lady. "Mother, dearest mother, you are trembling!" "Oh, this is a very, very bitter cup! God give me strength to drink it," exclaimed the widow. "He will bring sunshine with him; he will plead his own cause--" "Thankful, most deeply, profoundly thankful will I be, Flora, if he can indeed satisfy my mind that he is a faithful servant of our divine Master! I can pass over minor differences--the outer garb of religion--the forms which man hath appointed--we may hold various opinions here, and yet be one in the Lord. But if I find that my fears are but too true--that Sir Amery, gifted and noble as he is, has chosen a path of his own, which is not the narrow one which leadeth alone unto life; that he rests upon a hope of his own, which is not trust in the merits of his Saviour; that he has formed a standard of his own, which is not the standard of the Word of Truth; whatever grief, whatever anguish it may cost me, my duty is plain before me--I must not resign the treasure committed by God to my charge to the keeping of one who is not His disciple." And so they parted, the mother and the daughter, and many and bitter were the tears which wet their pillows that night. Mrs. Vernon sought and found relief in prayer--Flora, in thoughts of him whose idolized image stood between her and the light of Heaven. *CHAPTER XII.* *DECISION.*