Long, long afterwards, through much of sorrow--nay, even of tribulation--did her thoughts wander back to that golden evening of her life. "You remind me of my own mother to-night," said her father presently. Charlotte and her father had many times spoken of this dead mother. Now she said softly,-- "I want, I pray, I long to make as good a wife as you tell me she did." "With praying, longing, and striving, it will come Charlotte. That was how she succeeded." "And there is another thing," continued Charlotte, suddenly changing her position and raising her bright eyes to her old father's face. "You had a good wife and I had a good mother. If ever I die, as my own mother died, and leave behind me a little child, as she did, I pray that my John may be as good a father to it as you have been to me." But in answer to this little burst of daughterly love, a strange thing happened. Mr. Harman grew very white, so white that he gasped for breath. "Water, a little water," he said, feebly; and when Charlotte had brought it to him and he raised it to his lips, and the color and power to breathe had come back again, he said slowly and with great pain,-- "Never, never pray that your husband may be like me, Charlotte. To be worthy of you at all, he must be a much better and a very different man." CHAPTER XVII. HAPPINESS NOT JUSTICE. Hinton left Mr. Harman's house in a very perplexed frame of mind. It seemed to him that in that one short day as much had happened to him as in all the course of his previous life, but the very force of the thoughts, the emotions, the hopes, the fears, which had visited him, made him, strong, young and vigorous as he was, so utterly weary, that when he reached his rooms he felt that he must let tired-out nature have its way--he threw himself on his bed and slept the sleep of the young and healthy until the morning. It was February weather, February unusually mild and genial, and the pet day of yesterday was followed by another as soft and sweet and mild. When Hinton awoke from his refreshing slumbers, the day was so well and thoroughly risen that a gleam of sunshine lay across his bed. He started up to discover a corresponding glow in his heart. What was causing this glow? In a moment he remembered, and the gleam of heart sunshine grew brighter with the knowledge. The fact was, happiness was standing by the young man's side, holding out two radiant hands, and saying, "Take me, take me to your heart of hearts, for I have come to dwell with you." Hinton rose, dressed hastily, and went into his sitting-room. All the gloom which had so oppressed him yesterday had vanished. He could not resist the outward sunshine, nor the heart-glow which had come to him. He stepped lightly, and whistled some gay airs. He ate his breakfast with appetite, then threw himself into an easy-chair which stood near the window; he need not go to his chambers for at least an hour, he might give himself this time to think.