Had there ever been anything more graceful than the mock violence with which she had pretended to strike heartily at the coals?--had there ever anything been more lovely than that mingled glance of doubt, of fear, and of friendliness with which she had looked into his face as she did it? She had quite understood his feeling when he made his little request. There had been heart enough in her, spirit enough, intelligence enough, to tell her at once the purport of his demand. Or rather she had not seen it all at once, but had only understood when her hand had gone too far to be withdrawn that something of love as well as friendship had been intended. Before long she should know how much of love had been intended! Whether his purpose was or was not compatible with the wisdom of his theory as to a gradual diminution of distances, his heart had gone too far now for any retracting. As he sat there he at once began to teach himself that the arguments he had used were only good in reference to high-born females, and that they need not necessarily affect himself. Whomever he might marry he would raise to his own rank. For his rank he did not care a straw himself. It was of the prejudices of others he was thinking when he assured himself that Marion would make as good a Countess and as good a Marchioness as any lady in the land. In regard to his sister it was otherwise. She must follow the rank of her husband. It might be that the sores which she would cause to many by becoming the wife of a Post Office clerk ought to be avoided. But there need be no sores in regard to his marriage with Marion Fay. His present reasoning was, no doubt, bad, but such as it was it was allowed to prevail absolutely. It did not even occur to him that he would make an attempt to enfranchise himself from Marion's charms. Whatever might occur, whatever details there might be which would require his attention in regard to his father or others of the family, everything must give way to his present passion. She had poked his fire, and she must be made to sit at his hearth for the remainder of their joint existence. She must be made to sit there if he could so plead his cause that his love should prevail with her. As to the Quaker father, he thought altogether well of him too,--an industrious, useful, intelligent man, of whose quaint manners and manly bearing he would not be ashamed in any society. She, too, was a Quaker, but that to him was little or nothing. He also had his religious convictions, but they were not of a nature to be affronted or shocked by those of any one who believed that the increasing civilization of the world had come from Christ's teaching. The simple, earnest purity of the girl's faith would be an attraction to him rather than otherwise. Indeed, there was nothing in his Marion, as he saw her, that was not conducive to feminine excellence.