"No, papa, there shall be no drifting whatever. I shall marry, if ever, one whom I have learned to love according to Nature's simple laws--one to whom I can go without effort or calculation. I could give my heart, and be made rich indeed by the gift. I couldn't invest it; and if I did, no one would be more sorry than you in the end." "I should indeed be more than sorry if I ever saw you unhappy," he said, after another thoughtful pause; then added, shaking his head, "I've seen those who gave their hearts even more disappointed with life than those who took counsel of prudence." "I shall take counsel of prudence, and of you too, papa." "I think it is as I feared--you have already given your heart." She did not deny it. Before leaving him she pleaded: "Do not make much of my danger to mamma. She is nervous, and not over-fond of the country at best. You know that a good many people survive in the country," she concluded, with a smile that was so winning and disarming that he shook his head at her as he replied: "Well, Trurie, I foresee what a lovingly obstinate little girl you are likely to prove. I think I may as well tell you first as last that you may count on me in all that is fairly rational. If, with my years and experience, I can be so considerate, may I hope that you will be also?" Her answer was reassuring, and she went to tell her mother. She had been forestalled. Fred was quite as confidential with his mother as she with her father, and the boy had been wild to horrify Mrs. Hargrove by an account of his sister's adventure. The injunction laid upon him had been only for the previous evening, and Gertrude found her mother almost hysterical over the affair, and less inclined to commend Burt than to blame him as the one who had led her daughter into such "wild, harum-scarum experiences." "It's always the way," she exclaimed, "when one goes out of one's own natural associations in life." "I've not been out of my natural associations," Gertrude answered, hotly. "The Cliffords are as well-bred and respectable as we are;" and she went to her room.