"I believe you have, my lad," said the old man, relenting, and then went on with a good deal of natural pathos, "An old thorn like me can't expect to keep such a sweet rose ungathered on its stem. Take her, Neville. Love and cherish her as you would have God be good to you. Kiss me, Kate. You must still keep room in your heart for your poor old father. Ton have been my greatest solace since your mother died. Be as good a wife as you have been a daughter, and God's blessing on you both." Kate flung her arms around her father's neck and covered his brow and cheek with kisses. And Neville, taking his hand, said solemnly, "God do so to me and more also, if I cherish not your daughter as my life; if I cherish her not as Christ loved His Bride the Church, and gave Himself for it." "I have one regret," said Neville, sometime afterward, when Kate had gone out of the room, "and that is, that I have not brighter worldly prospects and more assured support to offer Kate." "The time has been, my son," said the squire, adopting him at once into the family, "when I would have thought so too; when I would have sought, as conditions for her future,--position, wealth, and ease. But I have lived to see that these are not the great essentials of life, that these alone cannot give happiness. With true love and God's blessing you can never be poor. Without these, though you roll in riches, you are poor indeed. Not but that it would grieve me to see Kate want, as many a preacher's wife whom I have known has wanted. But by God's goodness I am able to secure her against that, and to do so shall be the greatest pleasure of my life." "I accept on her behalf your generous offer," replied Neville, "but with this condition, that your bounty shall be settled exclusively on her. No man shall say that I married your daughter for anything but herself." "I dare say you are right," said the squire. "Better get a fortune in a wife than with a wife. Often when a wife brings a fortune she spends a fortune." "I would never submit," remarked Neville, "to the humiliation of being a pensioner upon a wife's bounty. My self-respect demands that, as the head of the house, I be able to depend on myself alone." "You must not push your principles too far," interrupted the squire, "A husband and wife should have one purse, one purpose, common interests, perfect mutual confidence, and, above all, no secrets from each other." In such sage counsels and confidences the evening, fraught with such eventful consequences to the household of The Holms and to the hero of our little story, passed away.