“Your father does not talk like that,” replied Susie, who was always timid before Dan’s outbursts of humor, but the belief that she was in the right made her bold. “I know he will not go to church, but he is so good! and he never says anything against others going, if they find spiritual food in what he says are dry husks to him.” “He’s a fine old chap, no mistake about that, and he forgets more every day than most people ever know; but he’s soft in spots. If I had only known him when he was a young man, I should have helped him to cut his eye-teeth.” “Ah!” said Susie, “what you call his ‘soft spots’ are his noblest qualities. What can be more benevolent and sweet than his treatment of poor old Mrs. Buzzell?” “Is that a conundrum?” Dan asked, in his rollicking way. “He is so good!” said Susie, taking no notice of Dan’s levity; “and I often think if he would join the church it would influence you——” “No, it wouldn’t,” interrupted Dan. “I’m only sensitive to your influence. You could do anything with me if you loved me as you once did.” They had just entered the gate and stopped a moment under the lilacs by the path. Susie looked up into Dan’s face and said, with a voice that trembled, “It is cruel for you to doubt me. I have not changed, unless”—“to love you more,” she would have said, but her words were checked by the depth of her emotion. “You do not show it, then.” “O Dan! I pray for you always. I think of you every moment. How can I prove it better?” she asked, with despairing tenderness. “O, much better you can prove it, Susie;” and under the fragrant lilacs, under the dear, bright stars, a thought blacker than mortal night entered Dan’s heart. “How do I know you pray for me?” he asked, caressing her hand very softly. “I do not hear you. Come to my room and pray for me there, and I shall believe you.” “Do you really wish me to?” she asked, with a look that would have softened any heart but that of this sleek young tiger, whose white teeth glistened in the moonlight. “I will,” she said simply, mentally reproaching herself for a momentary suspicion that had entered her mind. When Susie entered Dan’s room on her pious mission, he at once closed the door and locked it. Susie protested earnestly, but the only reply it elicited was a long-continued fit of subdued laughter which Dan indulged himself in, tilting back his chair and holding his fingers interlaced at the back of his head. Then he insisted upon a kiss as a preliminary. “No, no,” cried Susie. “Open the door and let me go. O Dan, you were not serious, after all. I wish I had not believed you;” and the poor girl covered her face and sobbed. “Serious? Never was so serious in my life, as I can prove to you; but what is the use of praying for me if my heart is not in the right mood, and nothing can do that but a kiss, though a hundred would make it surer. How Susie must love me. She cries because I ask for one.” * * * *