"_I_ did," said Bessie faintly, burying her face on my arm. "It fell out of your pocket when they carried you up stairs; and I read it, every word, twice over, before you came to yourself." "You little witch! And I thought you were marrying me out of pure faith in me, and not of sight or knowledge." "It was faith, the highest faith," said Bessie proudly, and looking into my eyes with her old saucy dash, "to know, to feel sure, that that sealed paper concerned nobody but me." And so she has ever since maintained. Transcriber's Note: This is a compiled version of a novel published in sections in the LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. List of the e-books from which this text was compiled: [EBook #13828] August 1873 [EBook #14036] September 1873 [EBook #13964] October 1873 End of Project Gutenberg's On the Church Steps, by Sarah C. Hallowell