Kate had at first blushed deeply, and then grew very pale. She however listened to her father patiently, and then said quietly, but with much firmness, "I respect Captain Villiers very highly, father; and am very grateful for his kindness to us all, and especially to Zenas when he was wounded. I feel, too, the honour he has done me in entertaining the sentiments of which you speak. But something more than respect is due to the man to whom I shall entrust my life's keeping. Where my heart goes, there will go my hand; there, and not elsewhere." "Pooh! pooh, child. Girls are always romantic, and never know their own mind. You will think better of it. I'm getting to be an old man, Kate, and would not like to leave you unsettled in life in these troublous times. You owe me your obedience as a daughter, remember?" "I owe you my love, my life, father, but I owe something to myself, and more to God. I feel that my taste and disposition end that of Captain Villiers are very different, and more different than ever since the recent change in my religious feelings. It would be at the peril of my soul, were I to encourage what you wish." "Nonsense, girl. You are growing fanatical. You never disobeyed me before. You must not disobey me now." Kate smiled a wan and flickering smile of dissent; but to say more she felt would be fruitless. A heavy burden was laid upon her young life. She knew the iron will that slumbered beneath her father's kind exterior; but she felt in her soul a will as resolute, and with a woman's queenly dignity she resolved to keep that soul-realm free. In her outward conduct she was more dutiful and attentive to her father's comfort than ever; but she felt poignantly that for the first time in her life an injunction was laid upon her by one who she so passionately loved which she could not obey. She found much comfort in softly singing to herself in that inviolate domain, the solitude of her own room, a recent poem which she had clipped from the _York Gazette,_ and which, in part, expressed her own emotions:-- "Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow Thee; Naked, poor, despised, forsaken, Thou, from hence, my all shalt be; Perish every fond ambition, All I've sought and hoped and known, Yet how rich is my condition! God and heaven are still my own! "And while Thou shalt smile upon me, God of wisdom, love, and might, Foes may hate, and friends may shun me Show Thy face and all is bright. Go, then, earthly fame and treasure! Come disaster, acorn, and pain! In Thy service, pain is pleasure; With Thy favour, loss is gain. "Man may trouble and distress me, Twill but drive me to Thy breast; Life with trials hard may press me, Heaven will bring me sweeter rest. O 'tis not in grief to harm me, While Thy love is left to me; O 'twere not in joy to charm me, Were that joy unmixed with Thee." CHAPTER XVIII. CHIPPEWA AND LUNDY'S LANE.