"And now," he continued hesitatingly, as if approaching a delicate subject, "I think I know the cause of your trouble and depression. Will you permit me to speak of it?" Again she averted her face in confusion, but said faintly: "As my spiritual physician I suppose you must." "I think you naturally felt greatly disappointed that Mr. De Forrest acted the part he did last evening." This speech put Lottie at ease at once, and she turned to him in apparent frankness, but with something of her old insincerity, and said, "I confess that I was." "You could not be otherwise," he said, in a low tone. "What would you advise me to do?" she asked demurely. It was now his turn to be embarrassed, and he found that he had got himself into a dilemma. The color deepened in his face as he hesitated how to answer. She watched him furtively but searchingly. At last he said, with sudden impetuosity, as if he could not restrain himself: "I would either make a man of him or break with him forever. It's horrible that a girl like you should be irrevocably bound to such--pardon me." Again Lottie averted her face, while a dozen rainbows danced in her moist eyes. But she managed to say, "Which do you think I had better do?" He tried to catch her eye, but she would not permit him. After a moment he sprang up and said, with something of her own brusqueness, "You had better follow your own heart." "That is what Mrs. Dlimm said," she exclaimed, struck by the coincidence. "You and Mrs. Dlimm are alike in many respects, but I fear the world would not regard either of you as the best of counsellors." "Whenever I have taken counsel of the world, I have got into trouble, Miss Marsden." "There, that is just what she said again. Are you two in collusion." "Only as all truth agrees with itself," he answered, laughing. "Well, perhaps it would be best to follow the advice of two such sincere counsellors, who are richly gifted with the wisdom of the other world, if not of this. Your talk has done me more good than I could have believed. How is it that it always turns out so? I'm inclined to think that your pastoral visits will do more good than your sermons." "Now have pity on me, in regard to that wretched sermon. But I know of something that will do you more good than either, in your present depression. Will you wait for me ten minutes?" "Yes; longer than that," she said, with an emphatic little nod. He at once started for the house with great strides. "My 'depression' is not very great at the present moment," she chirped, and giving a spring she alighted on the fallen tree with the ease of a bird. "I had 'better follow my own heart,' had I? Was there ever more delightful doctrine than that? But, bless me, whither is it leading? I dare not think, and I won't think." And so, to keep herself warm while waiting, she balanced up and down on the fallen tree, trilling snatches of song as a robin might twitter on its spray.