Mr. Gray and his daughter Mattie re-commenced housekeeping together on a different principle. Mattie's flitting had impressed Mr. Gray with the consciousness of his daughter possessing a will a trifle more inflexible than his own, and he respected her opinions in consequence. He treated her less like a child, and more like a woman whose remarks were worth listening to. In plain truth, he had become a little afraid of Mattie. He had learned to love her, and was afraid of losing her. Her stern determination to keep her promise--even part with him, rather than break it--had won his respect; for he was a firm man himself, and in his heart admired firmness in others. Father and daughter settled down to home-matters, and worked together in many things; if the daughter had one secret from her father, it was the woman's natural aversion to confess to an attachment not likely to be returned, and was scarcely a secret, considering that Mr. Gray had more than an inkling of the truth. The father did not care to solve the problem that was so easy of solution; he objected to showing any interest in such trivial mundane matters as love-making. He had a soul himself above love-making; which he considered vain, frivolous, and worldly, leading the thoughts astray from things divine. He saw Mattie's perplexity, and even hoped in the good time to alter it, if separation did not have its proper effect. "Presently--we shall see," was Mr. Gray's motto; and though he had spoken hopefully to Mattie, as Mattie had fancied, yet when they were at home again--two prosaic home figures--he kept the subject in the background. Still he was watchful, and when Mattie began to alter, to become more grave and downcast, as though his home was not exactly the place where she experienced happiness--when she brightened up at any suggestion to visit Sidney Hinchford, he thought less of his own comfort, and more of his daughter's, like a good father as he was, after all.