“She will refuse, decline, raise an obstacle!” exclaimed Nathan, vigorously; “if it is only to keep up the unities of the cross-purposes we have all been playing at.” “Oh, no, no, no!” cried Flora, hurriedly and loudly. At a burst of laughter from Mark and Nathan, she buried her blushing face in her hands. Hal was suffered to remove them, and to press them to his lips. “You accept him?” cried Gomer, chuckling. “Eh, Flora! that is the proper form of expression, is it not?” “Oh, I am so happy--so very, very happy,” she murmured, looking fondly at Hal. Then she suddenly ran up to her father and kissed him, as if with passionate gratitude. Presently she stole round to where Nathan Gomer sat, and bending over him timidly, pressed her lips to his forehead. An expression of intense emotion passed over that strange man’s features, his eyes filled with glittering tears, and his lips moved rapidly. A moment’s stillness. He rose up and took Flora’s hand. He placed it in Hal’s, and with a voice whose tones became rich from depth of feeling, he said-- “Take her, Mr. Vivian; you are the choice of her young heart, as she is of yours; your future happiness is in the keeping of both. Be you faithful to the trust now reposed in you; be you true to the love you now bear her. You have won her, now wear her as the richest jewel heaven and fortune can bestow upon you. Be gentle to her and tender with her, for she is a flower that will droop and perish under a cold aspect; and be sure that, for all the loving tenderness you may plant around her coming life, you will reap an abundant harvest of pure, enduring, devoted affection.” “Oh! that I were worthy of this treasure, so great, so sacred, now entrusted to my keeping,” ejaculated Hal, in a quivering, ardent voice, as he drew Flora to his breast. “Have only faith in me. I would die rather than be the occasion of one sad thought to her.” “Amen!” responded Nathan Gomer. “Understand me, young Mr. Vivian, though I help to hand over this treasure to you, I do not resign my self-constituted guardianship. Oh, but I shall be a very dragon of watchfulness still.” A merry laugh followed this sally. Then everybody seemed to know what was coming next. Mr. Wilton’s face grew serious and its muscles set; he had made one sacrifice--somehow he continued to think so. He felt really that he ought to be excused from making another--certainly they were not small ones. However, Nathan Gomer set boldly to work, and introduced the subject by addressing Mark. “Pray, sir, having been a witness to your sister’s happiness in catching a husband, have you no yearnings to take unto yourself a wife?” “I have for some time had the most ardent desire, sir,” responded Mark, quickly. “I have selected a young lady, but my father objects to my choice.” “On what ground, Wilton,” inquired Nathan, rather magisterially.