"’April 14. I have seen the child again. Yes, again and again. Many times, in fact. I call her child because so indeed she seems to me, who am, at least, fifteen years older. She tells me she is seventeen. ’Tis hard to believe for that in stature she’s no higher than my heart, and her eyes are as open and unconscious as a child’s except when—— But that is my fancy! I am sure ’tis my fancy. "’June 1st. ’Tis many weeks since that was written. Not that I have naught to say. Rather, too much. I find I cannot set down what is in my heart. _Idea Stryker and I are betrothed!_ "’June 14. Every afternoon towards sundown my little sweetheart and I walk in Cherry Lane. I wish she had a mother. I do not like these clandestine meetings. Sometimes I doubt myself. Not my love for Idea, God knows, but my power to make it tell for her best good. To-day I told her my conscience troubled me. I am no friend to untruth or furtive acts. Idea put on a look of high contempt, aping her father. She scowled at me, folded her arms across her bosom and, measuring me up and down, in his own manner to the life, said: "Deuce take your conscience, sir! I’ll have none of it." Then, suddenly changing, she clung to me crying, "I’ll have nothing but your love, Daniel! But, your love I’ll die to have, and to hold." I let my heart direct me rather than my head, and gave way to her. But I still feel the better course would be to tell her father and make an end of this deceit. * * * * * "’’Tis many a long day since I have taken up this book to write in it. Now that I do, ’tis in a different year and place. Yet I have often thought ’twas cowardly to shun the setting down in black and white of what will always be the deepest record of my heart. I have said Idea and I were at variance upon the point of telling her father what was between us. Again and again I tried to tell her ’twas unworthy of us both. But she always overruled me. I gave way. Then, one day when I spoke of it, she suddenly burst forth in such a passion as I have never seen. Poor child! ’Twas her father’s fury, but not, this time, done in mimicry. She told me she was weary of being preached to about the truth, deceit, and duty. She would have me know she’d as good a sense of propriety as I. Nay, better, for, after all, who was I but her father’s servant, she would like to know. "How dare you criticise me?" she blazed. "You forget I am your master’s daughter."