It was whispered low, and with cheek hidden on her mother's neck, as the good-night kiss was taken.
"Decide for your own happiness, Faithie. We have seen and understood for a long time. If it is to be as we think, nothing could give us a greater joy for you."
Ah! how much had father and mother seen and understood?
The daughter went her way, to wage her own battle in secret; to balance and fix her decision between her own heart and God. So we find ourselves left, at the last, in all the great crises of our life.
Late that night, while Mr. and Mrs. Gartney were felicitating each other, cheerily, upon the great good that had fallen to the lot of their cherished child, that child sat by her open window, looking out into the summer night; the tossing elm boughs whispering weird syllables in her ears, and the stars looking down upon her soul struggle, so silently, from so far!
"Mr. Rushleigh's here!" shouted Hendie, precipitating himself, next morning, into the breakfast room, where, at a rather later hour than usual, Mrs. Gartney and Faith were washing and wiping the silver and china, and Mr. Gartney still lingered in his seat, finishing somebody's long speech, reported in the evening paper of yesterday.
"Mr. Rushleigh's here, on his long-tailed black horse! And he says he'll give me a ride, but not yet. He wants to see papa. Make haste, papa."
Faith dropped her towel, and as Mr. Gartney rose to go out and meet his visitor, just whispered, hurriedly, to her mother:
"I'll come down again. I'll see him before he goes." And escaped up the kitchen staircase to her own room.
Paul Rushleigh came, he told Mr. Gartney, because, although Faith had not authorized him to appeal to her father to ratify any consent of hers, he thought it right to let him know what he had already said to his daughter. He did not wish to hurry Faith. He only wished to stand openly with Mr. Gartney in the matter, and would wait, then, till she should be quite ready to give him her own answer.
He explained the prospect his father offered him, and the likelihood of his making a permanent home at Kinnicutt.
"That is," he added, "if I am to be so happy as to have a home, anywhere, of my own."
Mr. Gartney was delighted with the young man's unaffected warmth of heart and noble candor.