"Settle it as you please, dear child. I don't think there would be much sunshine left for me if you were away from me. And now I suppose you will be very busy. You have _carte blanche_ for the trousseau, but your book? will you have time to write it, Charlotte? And that young woman whom I saw in your room yesterday, is she the amanuensis whom you told me about?" "She is the lady whom I hoped to have secured, father, but she is not coming." "Not coming! I rather liked her look, she seemed quite a lady. Did you offer her too small remuneration? Not that that would be your way, but you do not perhaps know what such labor is worth." "It was not that, dear father. I offered her what she herself considered a very handsome sum. It was not that. She is very poor; very, very poor and she has three little children. I never saw such a hungry look in any eyes as she had, when she spoke of what money would be to her. But she gave me a reason--a reason which I am not at liberty to tell to you, which makes it impossible for her to come here." Charlotte's cheeks were burning now, and something in her tone caused her father to gaze at her attentively. It was not his way, however, to press for any confidence not voluntarily offered. He rose from his seat with a slight sigh. "Well, dear," he said, "you must look for some one else. We can't talk over matters to-night. Ask Hinton to stay and dine. There; I must be off, I am very late as it is." Mr. Harman kissed his daughter and she went out as usual to button on his great-coat and see him down the street. She had performed this office for him ever since--a little mite of four years old--she had tried to take her dead mother's place. The child, the growing girl, the young woman, had all in turns stood on those steps, and watched that figure walking away. But never until to-day had she noticed how aged and bent it had grown. For the first time the possibility visited her heart that there might be such a thing for her in the future as life without her father. Uncle Jasper had said he was not well; no, he did not look well. Her eyes filled with tears as she closed the hall door and re-entered the house. But her own prospects were too golden just now to permit her to dwell as long, or as anxiously, as she otherwise would have done, on so gloomy an aspect of her father's case.